aunt gwendolin has discovered my chinese books that i had intended to keep hidden in my room. she came in suddenly one day and found me seated in the midst of them.
"what's this? what's this?" she cried in great agitation. "how are we ever going to get you into the ways of christianised, civilised folk if you keep feeding your mind on literature about uncivilised people?" and she gathered my books up into her arms and carried them away.
i have them all read, however, and she cannot carry away the thoughts they have left in my mind. what great[pg 71] creatures we human beings are! what a world with which no one else can meddle we can carry around in our little brains and hearts! it is all the same whether they are american or chinese brains or hearts.
"i see now where she has gotten all her smart sayings about the chinese," my aunt said to my grandmother and uncle theodore. "how can we ever hope to do anything with her when she is being poisoned by such stuff as is in those books? 'for ways that are dark and tricks that are vain' commend me to the chinese!"
"i'll sicken her of the chinese," she added: "i'll bring one into the kitchen to cook; then perhaps she'll feel more compunction about acknowledging that she is part celestial. she actually seems as if she were proud of the fact now."
grandmother remonstrated, but my aunt replied: "i have always been wanting to try a chinese cook; they are really the world's cooks and so careful and clean, it is said. then i would like to give pearl enough of it. she will not be so fond of claiming kinship with the cook."
the result of all this was that inside of twenty-four hours a chinaman was installed in the kitchen—and the biscuits are perfect.
his name is yee yick; of course he has three names, all chinamen have; but trying to become americanised they use only two in this country.
my aunt has decided that it is sufficient to call him yick. "the english call their servants by their surnames," was all the explanation she made.
yick is a dude; he has a suit for almost[pg 73] every day in the week, and is very vain of his appearance. his queue is rolled up around his head, which is a sign that he has not yet abandoned his home gods. he is very anxious to learn english, and betty tells me that he has a slate hanging up in the kitchen on which he is writing english words every spare moment.
i had watched yick a good deal, but i never exchanged a word with him, until the event occurred about which i am going to write; and i know he never dreamed that i could speak his language. poor yick! if he is "chief cook and bottle-washer," as my aunt says, he is my countryman, and i cannot help taking an interest in him.
one day i walked to the end of the veranda which runs the whole length of the house, and glancing in through[pg 74] the kitchen window as i passed, i saw yick making his tea-biscuits. he had the flour and shortening all mixed, and raising the bowl of milk which was on the table, he took a great mouthful, and then began to force it out in a heavy spray through his teeth into the dish of prepared flour, in the same manner as the chinese laundryman sprinkles clothes.
i wrung my hands, and cried within myself, "oh, yick, you terrible man! you horrible little pigtail!"
but i slipped back to the front of the veranda without making an audible sound. how could i tell on poor yick, and bring down such an awful storm on his head as would result? he was a stranger in a strange land, and it was my duty to protect him. was it such a very wicked thing he had done? he[pg 75] never killed little birds, anyway, and wore them on his head; nor trapped cunning little animals, and strung their heads and tails around his neck! i decided i would not tell on him.
but that evening at dinner i passed the plate of white, flaky biscuits without taking any. i sat at grandmother's left hand, and when she was not looking, i slipped the biscuit which she had taken away from her bread-and-butter plate, and let it slide from my hand down onto the floor. dear, absent-minded grandmother never missed it. aunt gwendolin and uncle theodore ate three biscuits each.
"it seems to me that yick keeps constantly improving in his biscuits," said my aunt, as she reached for her third.
"they ought to be better than other[pg 76] people at most everything," returned my uncle theodore, "they have been a long while practising. they may have been making biscuits before moses was born. the chinaman possesses a history which dwarfs the little day of modern nations. it is a saying of theirs that from the time heaven was spread and earth was brought into existence china can boast a continuous line of great men."
i looked pleased and smiled. my aunt seeing it said, with a toss of her head:
"a continuous line of great cooks and laundrymen."
that evening when my aunt and uncle were out, and grandmother had gone to bed, i slipped down to the kitchen and stood face to face with yick.
he almost kotowed to me, but commanding him to stand up, i told him in[pg 77] plain chinese that i had seen him mixing the biscuits, and disapproved of his plan.
his hair almost seemed to stand on end when he heard me speaking his native tongue. he started to tremble, and his knees bent under him.
"yee yick," i continued, in the language he thoroughly understood, "if you ever put the milk in your mouth again, and sift it out through your teeth into the flour, i shall inform the mistress of the house, and you shall be dismissed!"
trembling all over yick began rapidly in chinese to promise that he would never, never be guilty of the act again. then, as if scarcely able to believe that i could understand his native tongue, he repeated his promise in english.
"no, missee, yee yick not putee milk in mouthee! no, missee, yee yick not putee milk in mouthee!"
i assured him in chinese that i would keep the secret of what i had seen on condition that he would keep his promise, and went out of the kitchen, leaving the poor fellow almost in tears. i believe he scarcely knows whether to regard me as a spirit or a being of flesh and blood, it is so hard for him to understand how i can speak chinese.
the plumbers have closed up the hole in the floor, so i shall hear no more about the "wily celestial."
