aunt gwendolin decided, soon after i came, that i must begin at once to take lessons in spanish. the teachers are now visiting the house daily, one to teach me the spanish language, and the other to instruct me how to sing spanish songs. se?or de bobadilla has just been here, and i have been screeching away for half an hour in a small room where my aunt has had a piano placed specially for my use. she says she is not going to "bring me out"—that means introduce me to society, grandmother says; that was one of the puzzling questions i carried to her—until i can sing spanish songs. i see through it all, because of the conversation i heard through the[pg 61] floor opening; she thinks by that means to convince her society friends that i am spanish instead of chinese. how very funny!
there was a small dinner-party at this house the other evening, but of course i could not be at the table. i have not "come out." grandmother argued for my appearing, but aunt gwendolin was firm to the contrary, and she won. ancestors are not much regarded in america.
my aunt gave me permission, however, to look in on the guests when they were seated at the table. she had a large mirror fastened to the door, and by leaving it open at a particular angle i could watch—myself unseen behind a curtain—the ceremony of dining as practised in america.
mercy! those women with bare arms[pg 62] and bare shoulders sitting there before the men! how could they help blushing for themselves! i just gave one glance at them, then ran away and hid my face!
having the evening to myself, i went up to my room and enjoyed myself reading my chinese books. my aunt said that i was to stay at the curtained door, and learn the ways of society by watching the manners of the guests at dinner; but i saw all i wanted to see in one glance. i'd like to carry all those women little shawls to put around their bare shoulders. mrs. delancy's was the barest of them all, but i have heard my aunt talk since about how "elegantly gowned mrs. delancy was."
a strange thing happened up in my room; i opened one of my books just at the page where it tells about the chinese[pg 63] ambassadors, on the occasion of their visits to christian countries, noticing with grave disapproval the décollete costumes of the women at the state functions. what wonder!—if they looked anything like the women at my aunt's dinner party!
se?or de bobadilla says that i am making remarkable progress with my spanish songs; he tells grandmother in a half-whisper, as if fearing to let me hear him, that i am very bright and intelligent; he congratulated her on having such a prodigy for a grandchild. oh, cunning se?or de bobadilla, you want to continue my lessons indefinitely. i am learning to quiver and shake, and trill, run up the scale, and down the scale, jump from a note away down low to a note away up high. i'll soon be able to sing "lead me to the light," as well as the church choir.
the professor looks very spanish in brown velvet coat, red necktie, shoes shining like a looking-glass, a moustache waxed into long points on each side of his top lip, and hair hanging in a curling brown mat down to his shoulders. seated at the piano, his thin yellow fingers sprawl over the white and black ivory keys, while in response to my efforts he keeps ejaculating, "goot! goot! excellent! superb!"
i, dressed in muslin, cream-coloured ground dashed over with wild roses, or blue ground with white chrysanthemums (the latter is not very becoming to my yellow skin) stand at his left hand stretching my mouth to the utmost, trying to give utterance to the tones he is striking on the piano, and trying to look spanish, too.
se?or de la prisa is teaching me the[pg 65] spanish language—a lesson every day, and i am beginning to jabber the strange gibberish like a parrot: "es un dia bonita. el viento es frio. se esta haciendo tarde. es temprano." i'll soon believe myself that i am really spanish, and have never come from "the country of yellow gods and green dragons," as uncle theodore calls my dear native land.
i have been watching people, reading the daily newspapers and my chinese books, and asking grandmother questions until i feel very wise. i am almost as wise as a real american now.
some weeks following mrs. paton's sunday visit to my grandmother, i was out for a short walk of pleasure when i overtook her. she was pleased to meet me again, she said, and we walked along together, chatting, at least[pg 66] she talked and i listened, sometimes asking questions.
"just think of it, my dear," she said, "this is the day on which men are applying for licenses to sell poison to kill their fellow-men."
then she told me story after story of the terrible misery caused by intoxicating drinks, and the sin and crime they caused people to commit, until i was almost in tears.
a noise of voices and tramping feet interrupted her, and there came around a corner, marching toward us, a long procession of men.
"who are they?" i inquired, slipping my arm into hers. i had never before seen so many men together.
"strikers," she returned sadly.
"strikers?" i exclaimed.
"yes," she added, "men who will not[pg 67] work until their employers pay them the amount they think they ought to be paid."
tramp! tramp! tramp! the great crowd passed us in long file, dusty, worn, hard-worked men. my heart swelled as i looked at their strained faces; i could not go any farther on my walk; i had to rush home to ask grandmother questions.
"grandmother!" i cried, panting into her room, "strikes in a country that follows christ!—and men asking for a license to sell poison to their fellow-men!"
i fell on my knees in front of her chair and sobbed, i could not have told why.
she took my face in her soft old withered hands, and holding it was about to speak, when my aunt [pg 68]gwendolin, who had overheard me, came into the room and cried indignantly:
"that crank of a mrs. paton has been talking to the girl; i know her very words. that woman should be forcibly restrained!"
grandmother did not answer her, but continued to stroke my face until i grew quieter, and until my aunt had left the room. then in reply to my many pointed questions she told me in brief, that the reason men got licenses to sell liquor was that they paid money for them, and the country granted them for the sake of the great revenue they brought into its treasury.
"oh, grandmother!" i cried, raising my head from her lap, "when britain tried to induce the chinese emperor to legalise the opium traffic because of the import duty, he said, 'nothing shall[pg 69] induce me to derive a revenue from the vice and misery of my people'!"—i had read all this in my books on china.
grandmother was wiping away tears, and i said no more.
i went up to my own room, and half an hour later i heard my uncle theodore, to whom my grandmother had repeated my words, say:
"she is preternaturally sharp. no girl of this country thinks of the things she does. i suppose they develop younger in those eastern climes."
"it is all new to her," said my grandmother; "she has just come in upon it and sees it with fresh eyes. the girls here have grown up with it and become used to it by degrees."
"oh, it's that oriental blood—half witch, half demon—that's at the bottom of all her tantrums. the orientals[pg 70] are all a subtle lot, and we as a country are wise to make them stay at home," said my aunt gwendolin.
