Chinatowns -- Pacific States -- Fiction; Chinese Americans -- Fiction; Short stories
“Yes,” murmured Lin Fo. He was completely crushed. “And some other
things.”
“What other things?”
“She—is—afraid—of—the—doctor.”
“She is!”—fiercely—“Shame upon you!”
Lin Fo began to walk on, but the girl kept by his side and continued:
“You wanted your wife to be an American woman while you remained a
Chinaman. For all your clever adaptation of our American ways you are a
thorough Chinaman. Do you think an American would dare treat his wife as
you have treated yours?”
Wan Lin Fo made no response. He was wondering how he could ever have
wished his gentle Pau Tsu to be like this angry woman. Now his Pau Tsu
was gone. His anguish for the moment made him oblivious to the presence
of his companion and the words she was saying. His silence softened the
American girl. After all, men, even Chinamen, were nothing but big,
clumsy boys, and she didn’t believe in kicking a man after he was down.
“But, cheer up, you’re sure to find her,” said she, suddenly changing
her tone. “Probably her maid has friends in Chinatown who have taken
them in.”
“If I find her,” said Lin Fo fervently, “I will not care if she never
speaks an American word, and I will take her for a trip to China, so
that our son may be born in the country that Heaven loves.”
“You cannot make too much amends for all she has suffered. As to
Americanizing Pau Tsu—that will come in time. I am quite sure that were
I transferred to your country and commanded to turn myself into a
Chinese woman in the space of two or three months I would prove a sorry
disappointment to whomever built their hopes upon me.”
Many hours elapsed before any trace could be found of the missing one.
All the known friends and acquaintances of little Pau Tsu were called
upon and questioned; but if they had knowledge of the young wife’s
hiding place they refused to divulge it. Though Lin Fo’s face was grave
with an unexpressed fear, their sympathies were certainly not with him.
The seekers were about giving up the search in despair when a little
boy, dangling in his hands a string of blue beads, arrested the
attention of the young husband. He knew the necklace to be a gift from
Pau Tsu to the maid, A-Toy. He had bought it himself. Stopping and
questioning the little fellow he learned to his great joy that his wife
and her maid were at the boy’s home, under the care of his grandmother,
who was a woman learned in herb lore.
Adah Raymond smiled in sympathy with her companion’s evident great
relief.
“Everything will now be all right,” said she, following Lin Fo as he
proceeded to the house pointed out by the lad. Arrived there, she
suggested that the husband enter first and alone. She would wait a few
moments.
“Miss Adah,” said Lin Fo, “ten thousand times I beg your pardon, but
perhaps you will come to see my wife some other time—not today?”
He hesitated, embarrassed and humiliated.
In one silent moment Adah Raymond grasped the meaning of all the
morning’s trouble—of all Pau Tsu’s sadness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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