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 LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
 
 PRINCETON, N. J. 
 
 
 
 PURCHASED BY THE HAMILL MISSIONARY FUND. 
 
 
 
 PZ 7 .A648 Ch 
 Applegarth, Margaret IT. 184 
 -1976. 
 
 A china shepherdess 
 

 

 
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A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 

 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS | 
 
 ‘By / 
 MARGARET T. Ngee 
 
 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 THE JUDSON PRESS 
 BOSTON CHICAGO LOS ANGELES 
 
 KANSAS CITY SEATTLE TORONTO 
 
Copyright, 1924, by 
 THE JUDSON PRESS 
 
 
 
 Published June, 1924 
 
 PrinTeED In U.S.A. 
 
Sometimes people write books and other peo- 
 ple do not know how to use them. Thats always 
 such a pity! For there is so much more to do 
 with a book than just to read it and then put it 
 away on a shelf. Had you thought that perhaps 
 somebody else would like to hear about it on spe- 
 cial occasions in your church and Sunday school? 
 
 You will see that the China Shepherdess has 
 given you some hints about when her stories can 
 be told, and the drawings in each chapter will 
 give still other hints! 
 

 

 
 HAND-DECORATED CHINA 
 
 Once upon a time there was a Committee Meeting. 
 Among those present were: Mr. Glue Pot, presiding; 
 Mr. Ink Bottle, Miss Scissors, Mrs. Pencil, Miss Pen, and 
 various connections of the Paper Family—such as little 
 Pasteboard Pieces and their cousin Colored Cardboard, 
 also the Box Brothers, and Miss Book. 
 
 Said Chairman Glue Pot (unsealing his lips), “ Will the 
 meeting please come to order. Ladies and gentlemen, 
 we are met to listen to a report from Miss Book.” 
 
 Said Miss Book (opening her jacket and turning her 
 leaves): “ Dear friends, as you know, I am about to 
 tour the country to tell the adventures of a certain 
 China Shepherdess to young people, to boys and girls, 
 to leaders and to teachers. It seems to me it would 
 be the greatest help if these various readers, in home 
 or school, could have object lessons to make China 
 seem more real to them: hand-decorated China, as it 
 were.” 
 
Said Mr. Ink Bottle (politely raising his lid), “ Madam, 
 as we stand on the brINK of sending you out into the 
 world, I shrINK from being the first to speak, yet 1 
 herewith gladly shed every drop of my life’s blood to 
 help your various Chinese dolls to prINK and wINK 
 and blIINK.” 
 
 Said Miss Pen, “ And I can thINK of no higher task 
 than to sINK myself in that spilled INK and—make 
 faces!” 
 
 Said Miss Scissors (cuttingly), “ There are those who 
 call me a great cut-up, but I hereby promise to cut 
 out all houses, pagodas, Blue Belles, buffaloes, dragons, 
 pedlers, and wheelbarrows.” 
 
 Said Mr. Glue Pot (with sticky devotion), “ And I hope 
 I’m not too stuck-up to join together what you have 
 put asunder! ” 
 
 Said the Box Brothers (with hollow pathos), “ Our lives 
 have been so empty lately that if you can use any 
 of us, thin or fat, we shall be filled with gratitude.” 
 
 Said the Paper Family in a chorus, ‘‘ You cover us with 
 confusion! For what good is ink, or glue, or scissors, 
 
 or boxes, if somebody doesn’t move that we be laid on 
 the table?” 
 
 And instantly everybody “ moved”: moved right on top 
 of the paper, with the following results in hand-deco- 
 rated China— 
 
 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 JOE NTER THE GHINA TOHEPHERDESS ooo. Po eke % 
 (A trip, a talk, and a few other things.) 
 
 II]. BECAUSE THE GOLDEN LILIES PINCHED*...... 15 
 
 (Suppose you spent the night in another 
 girl’s shoes!) 
 
 Pilea VL iss VLARCO<FOLO DISCOVERS CHINA so... . 39 
 (It is never too late to go exploring with 
 her. ) 
 TV. OpeninGc CHINA WITH A LANCET..........6.- 53 
 
 (You will like Dr. Peter Parker.) 
 
 MTA NNS@A CROSS THE SEA 100s vrs gc be Po eee ewe 65 
 
 (Both Dr. Eleanor Chestnut’s hands and 
 your own, too.) 
 
 VI. Prrate Piz AND THE-BoAT-WItTH-AN-EYE .... 75 
 (Not a la mode, even in China.) 
 
 Ree OLEN. WANT “A CRACKER 2 oiiccoc hci a dp ewlicne « 91 
 
 (Can you speak Chinese?) 
 
 * The author gratefully acknowledges permission to adapt the two starred 
 stories which appeared originally in ‘‘ Everyland.” 
 
CHAPTER 
 
 WALT: 
 
 IX. 
 
 oO 
 
 XIT. 
 
 XITT. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 XV. 
 
 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 THE (BEST SELLERGINGA GELUARY eee 
 (Here is a Thanksgiving story.) 
 
 ‘TEN: [INKLING BLUE BELLES? 3 snes 
 (When school opened in China.) 
 
 . THE STAR THAT WaAs STOLEN BY THE THREE 
 
 UN-wIsE MEN oF THE EAST*........... 
 (This sounds like Christmas, doesn’t it ?) 
 
 THE LostT-ANpD-FoUND FRONT Door ........ 
 
 (But you will have to be told that this is 
 a New Year’s Story.) 
 
 THE HEArT oF BuFFALO BILL Was FIvE- 
 JACKETS ‘COLD: 3.2 Ae RE eee 
 
 (Surely there’s a Valentine here!) 
 
 WITH THE COMPLIMENTS OF Mr. Si AND THE 
 Empress’ S1-Einc-CHl. o..2. eee 
 
 (Silk week comes in February, you 
 know.) 
 
 THE Pic THAT WAS A VACUUM-CLEANER ... 
 (Pigs and March 17th belong together.) 
 
 A New St. Georce But A Very OLp DRAGON 
 
 (What happened when things were left 
 to George.) 
 
 137 
 
 151 
 
 167 
 
 179 
 
 191 
 
 203 
 
CHAPTER 
 
 ZONES 
 
 Dey IT. 
 XVIII. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 XX. 
 XXI. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 ANWFALOONS CUT OFTHE SK Y2 se cute eee 217 
 
 (This of course sounds exactly like 
 “April Fool” !) 
 
 GRANNY’s CoFFIN Was VERY RED ........ Pao 
 (But Easter took away the dread of it.) 
 
 Tue MortTuer or A Mau Jonc Cry-BaBy .. 247 
 (Mother's Day is every day in China, too. ) 
 
 Goopy-Two-SuHors Got A MotrHer-1n-Law 263 
 
 (‘Here Comes the Bride!” Weddings 
 are quite different in China. ) 
 
 PRESUMPTUOUS CYN AND THE MANDARIN .. 283 
 (When “ fly-time ” came to China.) 
 
 PE ERUSTT ATR ONGTELE? LKOOF Gs ceivels a cits © «'s 299 
 (This may remind you of Hallowe’en.) 
 
 ENTER THE CHINA SHEPHERD .........-- agai 
 
 (He wanted to “light” China; and he 
 did!) 
 
a 
 
 S beau fi } 
 
 i are 
 
 oe 
 
 
 

 
 If you are going to tell the stories in this book to somebody 
 else, then it will be really a great deal of fun to make the various 
 houses and characters suggested in the drawings; that is one 
 reason why the lines have been made so awkwardly simple, 
 so that you will not be afraid to try copying them yourself. 
 (The other reason, alas, is that I really can’t draw any better!) 
 
 Cynthia’s Dresden China Shepherdess was made of very brittle 
 bisque, no doubt; but you can make a charming little shepherdess 
 of your own by dressing a small doll like this Miss Bo-Peep; or 
 you can draw one on cardboard and cut it out. 
 
moi rite ett 
 LATO AL Ih oS A 
 
 “A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” 
 “The sea is not worn by ships, nor is a road ruined by travel.” 
 
 “Good words are like a string of pearls.” 
 
I 
 ENTER THE CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 CyNTHIA is really very nice, and you are going 
 to like her immensely before you get through 
 with this book, I hope. It is possible that we 
 ought to be calling her Miss Drummond so that 
 you can fully realize that when this story opened 
 she was a young lady in long skirts (but not too 
 long, of course) with her hair done up in a lovely 
 _ knot at the nape of her neck. Also—in case you 
 ever need to remember it—she had graduated 
 from college with high honors. But in spite of 
 skirts and knots and honors somehow you can- 
 not call Cynthia “ Miss Drummond ”’; the minute 
 you do, she stops being Cynthia! Half the gold 
 stops sparkling in her hair, half the violet color 
 drops from her violet-gray eyes at the very first 
 syllable “ Drum ”” Oh, much-too-heavy a 
 name, when Cynthia herself is light like the wind 
 and the waves and the dear spring flowers and 
 the saucy spring breezes. 
 
 Now it happened on the day when Cynthia was 
 starting on a trip around the world that she was 
 
 [3] 
 
 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 packing her trunks and trying her best to squeeze 
 a certain package into a corner where there was 
 no room for it. 
 
 “Tt won’t go in,” she sighed. 
 
 “Sit on it!” suggested a voice from the other 
 room. 
 
 “T have,” Cynthia answered. “I’ve sat and 
 sat and sat. But she won’t be wedged down, so 
 I'll just have to leave her home. Anyhow, it’s 
 perfectly silly to cart a foolish little Dresden 
 China Shepherdess all around the world! JT'll 
 just leave her bowing and scraping to her little 
 Mr. Dresden China Shepherd on the other cor- 
 ner of the mantle.” 
 
 “Oh but, Cyn dear, you must take the shep- 
 herdess, you simply must! She’s your mascot— 
 she looks exactly as you looked when you were 
 Miss Bo-Peep in the senior play, and when the 
 girls in the cast gave her to you you vowed that 
 never you twain should part! Squeeze her in 
 somehow, Cyn; if you don’t have a mascot along 
 how’ll you ever get home safely? ” 
 
 “Then join me on the lid, darling! ” Cynthia 
 called. And with a double weight on top of her 
 the shepherdess obligingly sank face downward 
 into darkness. The trunk.was locked; which left 
 
 [4] 
 
ENTER THE CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 the Dresden china shepherd with a very cold 
 bleak look in his blue china eye, for nothing could 
 be more forlorn than to keep holding a china 
 hand over a china heart as he china-gazed at— 
 nothingness! 
 
 But you need not waste sympathy on him, be- 
 ing merely a doll; for there was Cynthia’s flesh- 
 and-blood family holding what her young brother 
 called ‘“ Handkerchief Day,” as they wiped their 
 eyes and listened for that gay little voice which 
 was not to be heard for so long. 
 
 “Now she’s in San Francisco 
 
 “Now she’s going on board the steamer 
 
 “It’s noon! The steamer’s off! Oh, I do hope 
 she wont be sick.” 
 
 Cynthia was hoping this also, for it was very, 
 very rough. 
 
 “T thought you told me this ocean was called 
 the Pacific! ” she complained to the Second Offi- 
 cer with a disappointed look in her violet-gray 
 eyes. “‘ When I went to school pacific meant 
 peaceful, but look at those waves! Just look at 
 them! ” 
 
 The Second Officer looked. He was very sorry 
 the way they forced such a good ship to knock 
 down stars with her bow and stir up the sea-bed 
 
 [5] 
 
 99 
 
 
 
 99 
 
 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 with her stern. But being only the Second Mate 
 there was not much that he could do, although 
 he promised very faithfully to report her com- 
 plaint to the Captain. 
 
 “Oh, thank you,” Cynthia cried gratefully, 
 “then I’m sure this won’t happen again!” 
 
 And curiously enough, it didn’t! For there 
 were quiet blue waves ever after, with the sea 
 quite like blue crépe paper. Cynthia paced the 
 deck for hours at a time and hated to go indoors 
 to eat or to sleep. But one day she heard singing. 
 It was a hymn. 
 
 “ But this isn’t Sunday, is it? ” she asked ina 
 very bewildered fashion, for it is amazing how 
 Tuesday and Friday and Sunday can seem so 
 exactly alike when there is day after day after 
 day of crinkling blue waves and more sky than 
 could be seen in any town. 
 
 “No, it isn’t Sunday, it’s missionaries!” her 
 friends explained. 
 
 Now Cynthia had known a missionary once. 
 A large and jolly man from the very middle of 
 some desert, and she had always wished that her 
 particular home town had not been so small and 
 unimportant, for otherwise he might have come 
 back to tell more about Arabs and camels and 
 
 [6] 
 
ENTER THE CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 sand-storms. She wondered if by any chance 
 this particular hero might be one of the singers 
 below deck. 
 
 “T’m going to see!” she exclaimed. 
 
 “What? On this grand afternoon?” every 
 one cried protestingly. 
 
 “There'll be tomorrow,” Cynthia twinkled 
 recklessly as she hurried to the meeting, only to 
 receive the shock of her life! For instead of the 
 Large Man From The Desert there was the lit- 
 tlest Plain Gray Lady you ever saw. 
 
 So little, so plain, and so gray that Cynthia 
 wondered she had not been blown overboard dur- 
 ing the terrific two days’ gale. “I think Il not 
 stay to hear any one so plain and gray,” said 
 Cynthia to herself, and was about to rush back 
 to the sunshine again when the Little Plain Gray 
 Person uttered one sentence so utterly surpris- 
 ing that Cynthia really had to linger to hear the 
 next sentence. 
 
 For imagine any unknown little lady saying 
 calmly, “ What I need more than any other one 
 thing in the world is a new china shepherdess.”’ 
 
 Well! 
 
 Cynthia sat down on a back seat instantly, in 
 order to hear the rest of this amazing desire. 
 
 [7] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 “The trouble with me is,” sighed the Plain 
 Gray Lady, “I find myself too popular! I’m 
 always a lady in haste. There ought to have 
 been two of me, or maybe even three! For I 
 have my school to teach, and that’s my real work. 
 I’ve had it for twenty years now, such a nice 
 little Chinese school with green tile roofs tipping 
 up at the corners—a little school brimful to the 
 very door-jambs with girls in blue cotton jackets 
 and trousers. They even overflow the door- 
 jambs out into my hallways. I can’t send home 
 any little blue-cotton pupils, they’re so stupid and 
 so eager and so precious when they come, then 
 in a few years’ time they turn out to be so wise 
 and so useful and so doubly precious. All my 
 life I seem to have been turning stupid blue- 
 cotton pupils into bright blue-cotton pupils! It’s 
 a career in itself. The ‘Real Me’ never wants 
 to give it up; never! ” 
 
 “You are an adorably Plain Gray Full-of-fun 
 Darling!’ Cynthia smiled to herself. “ Blue- 
 cotton pupils, indeed! What a jolly way to talk; 
 it beats the Man From The Desert.” And of 
 course she continued to sit on the back seat listen- 
 ing for the shepherdess part of the story. 
 
 “But what am I to do, being so popular?” 
 
 [8] 
 
ENTER THE CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 laughed the Plain Gray Lady. “ For there’s my 
 school full to the brim, every blessed girl need- 
 ing to know everything from alphabets to tooth- 
 brushes. And these blue-cotton pupils have 
 mothers. One by one these mothers invite me to 
 come and sit in their house; or if they fail to 
 invite me, I feel that it is all the more urgent to 
 go of my own accord. Although I may seem 
 very little to you, in their eyes I am satisfactorily 
 big and important. I settle things! I settle 
 about the row of idols on the godshelf—what to 
 do with them when the family becomes Chris- 
 tian. I settle about the pig. He is so precious. 
 Wealth, on four feet! Why, oh, why do I object 
 to his sleeping under the bed? I speak of disease 
 - germs and uncleanness. We talk for hours of 
 pigs and baths, and somehow or other this al- 
 ways ends up with my strange ‘ save-the-world- 
 doctrine.’ They are so curious about it! I want 
 them to be curious! That’s what I came to China 
 for, to make people curious about Christ. It’s 
 kept me there for twenty years, it’s taken all my 
 spare moments, and always bedtime comes before 
 I have seen half the people needing me that day. 
 Oh, if there could only be two of me, so that one 
 could teach arithmetic and Bible in my green- 
 
 [9 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 tiled school while the other visited the little 
 crooked houses on the little crooked streets. ‘Go 
 slowly! Go slowly!’ they say to me with their 
 Chinese politeness when I bow myself away from 
 their thresholds. Indeed, I get quite flustered 
 by so much hospitality, for little plain gray spin- 
 sters become heavy-hearted when they never 
 finish half their work. With so many lost sheep, 
 surely you see how I need a new China Shep- 
 herdess? ” 
 
 Cynthia squirmed uneasily. “Oh, it’s not a 
 china China Shepherdess she wants but a human 
 China Shepherdess! Well, that sets me free! I 
 thought maybe I’d have to part with my nice lit- 
 tle mascot. But I’m safe! ” | 
 
 But of course you can see that this did not set 
 Cynthia free, by any manner of means. Neither 
 was she safe. Not a bit of it! For the little 
 thought came creeping into her mind that once 
 upon a time she had made the beguilingest kind 
 of a Miss Bo-Peep whose specialty had been lost 
 sheep 
 
 “Oh dear, why did I ever come to this meet- 
 ing? And why am I thinking all this about my- 
 self? She doesn’t mean me! Of course she 
 doesn’t. She never saw me before. She doesn’t 
 
 [10] 
 
 
 
ENTER THE CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 even dream [’m in the room now.” (But that 
 was not true, for no one could possibly overlook 
 Cynthia in any room!) “ And I don’t believe in 
 missions anyhow. At least, not much! Those 
 people have their own gods.” 
 
 Indeed they did have their own gods! The 
 Plain Gray Lady was telling things about them. 
 Rather horrid, awful things. Cynthia felt sorry 
 to be hearing such things. 
 
 “When I see these idols of China,” sighed 
 the Plain Gray Lady in closing, “then how I do 
 wish there were three of me, for one of me would 
 do nothing but haunt the temples and the little 
 wayside shrines to tell the disappointed worship- 
 ers my wonderfully good news—a God touched 
 with every feeling of their infirmities! This al- 
 ways surprises them so much, for they really do 
 have infirmities in China—appalling ones! In- 
 deed, if there could only be four of me, I’d be a 
 doctor, too.” 
 
 Then everybody had to laugh at this amazing 
 little lady. So small, and yet so eager to be four 
 others! It was quite evident that the audience 
 loved her. Cynthia loved her, too. She loved 
 her so much that she said fiercely: “ I’d like to 
 have the kind of medals they pin on soldiers for 
 
 [11] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 valor. I’d pin them all over her! I’d kiss her on 
 both cheeks, like Papa Joffre! The brave little, 
 dear little, tired little heroine! Always snowed 
 under with work. And so old! Surely she 
 ought to be knitting by somebody’s fireplace with 
 a cozy old tabby-cat purring beside her.” 
 
 Since she had no medals and no fireplace and 
 no cat, Cynthia rushed up on deck and marched 
 round it and round it and round it, rather sav- 
 agely. Her lovely violet-gray eyes looked posi- 
 tively black. 
 
 “Just the same, I don’t believe in missions 
 shé said to the blue waves. 
 
 The blue waves were making white caps here 
 and there, entirely unconcerned. ‘Oh! don’t 
 you?” they seemed to chuckle, and went right on 
 making white caps. So the girl who owned a 
 china China Shepherdess went down to her little 
 cabin to dress for dinner, muttering crossly, “ A 
 perfect waste of money! ” 
 
 But that was at night. 
 
 {*? 
 
 [12] 
 

 
 You can plainly see that a Chinese wheelbarrow is an entirely 
 different affair from any ever seen in America. Even this picture 
 is not so complicated as it should be, because it has been drawn 
 simpler on purpose to show you how you can make one for your- 
 self from a narrow tan box lid, a circle of tan cardboard for 
 a wheel, and a few toothpicks for the curious arch-like frame 
 over the wheel. (This can be omitted if too difficult.) Slit the 
 seat smoothly along the center of the box lid and wedge the 
 wheel through the slit. Thread a needle with a piece of string, 
 double it, and tie the two ends together into as big a knot as 
 possible. Then (1) at the spot marked X on the wheelbarrow 
 seat poke your needle through; (2) next sew through the hub 
 of the wheel, once; (3) bring the thread through the seat on 
 the other side corresponding to X, and tie another big knot. Cut 
 away the back part of the lid leaving only handle-bars. For the 
 coolie use pedler pattern in Chapter XVIII; and for the long 
 line of school-less girls use Blue Belles from Chapter IX. 
 
ml UT fla ET 
 LAT AL I LS 7 Th 
 
 “ For every pair of bound feet there is a bed of tears.” 
 “Tf you don’t scale the mountain you can’t see the view.” 
 
 “The summer insect cannot speak of ice; the frog in the 
 bottom of the well should not talk of the heavens.” 
 
Mi! 
 
 BECAUSE THE GOLDEN LILIES 
 PINCHED 
 
 CynTuia felt quite differently when she woke 
 up in the morning, stiff and cramped, with her 
 feet hurting her in a truly agonizing fashion. 
 Peculiar! She couldn’t imagine what ailed them; 
 she rolled over in bed and found to her amaze- 
 ment that she was lying on bricks—bricks? 
 She touched them experimentally. Yes, bricks! 
 Rather like a shelf it seemed. Of all puzzling 
 things—how did she ever get there? She climbed 
 down, but began at once to wince and whimper 
 with pain. 
 
 “Sh!” said somebody who seemed to be her 
 grandmother, reaching for a switch that seemed 
 only too ready-to-use, “don’t say that again, 
 you'll wake everybody, you provoking young bag- 
 gage! Back to bed with you at once,” and there 
 came the sudden stinging switch of the switch on 
 her arms. 
 
 She was never so surprised in her life! Who 
 was this amazing old grandmother-person? And 
 
 [15] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 why was she being treated like a little, little girl? 
 A dozen sentences rushed to her lips at once, but 
 what she actually found herself gasping as she 
 tottered away from the energetic old lady, was: 
 “O Venerably Aged, I really didn’t say a word! 
 Really I didn’t, Honorably August!” (This 
 seemed a strange way to address anybody; she 
 pinched her arm to be sure that she was properly 
 awake. She was.) 
 
 “Tut! Tut!” grumbled Granny. “ All night 
 long haven’t you been babbling that something 
 was a perfect waste of money, and now you’re 
 talking again, you miserable cry-baby! Stop it, 
 I say!” And there was another crack of the 
 switch, sharp, quick, stinging. 
 
 Cynthia gasped again: “Oh, please! Please, 
 Respected One, I’m not a cry-baby, but my feet— 
 my feet—they hurt me so terribly, they feel like 
 pounded jelly.” 
 
 “Of course they do, you foolish little idiot. 
 Just like all the rest of us you’re proving the truth 
 of the proverb that ‘for every pair of golden 
 lilies there’s a bed of tears.’ Well, did you sup- 
 pose your golden lilies were going to be any dif- 
 ferent from anybody’s else? Get back into 
 bed! ” 
 
 [ 16 ] 
 
BECAUSE THE GOLDEN LILIES PINCHED 
 
 “ But I can’t see any bed to get back into, and 
 I h-haven’t any g-golden I-lilies. Oh dear! Oh 
 dear! whatever makes everything seem so pecu- 
 han? 
 
 What indeed? 
 
 For by this time she had awakened the entire 
 _household; there stood Grandfather blinking 
 solemnly through his big horn glasses; there 
 stood the Fat Uncle with his curving fierce mus- 
 tache draping his lips; there stood the Thin Uncle 
 who looked so very cross, and the Deaf Uncle 
 who thunderingly demanded to know what this 
 worm of a she-child meant by awaking everybody 
 at daybreak. 
 
 “It’s her golden lilies,” shouted Grandmother 
 loudly into the ears of this, her eldest son. 
 
 “La! La!” shrugged the various sleepy aunts 
 and cousins, “is that all? What did the little 
 goose expect to feel, anyhow? She ought to have 
 had them bound years and years ago.” | 
 
 Them? Bound? 
 
 Cynthia glanced down at her feet and gasped 
 with surprise at the astonishing thing she saw— 
 trousers! Blue-cotton trousers! And peeping 
 out from under the trousers the most absurdly 
 awful little feet, just a few inches long, bound 
 
 [17] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 round and round with tight deforming bandages. 
 A curious sudden notion popped into her brain 
 and from there to her lips. 
 
 “Am I—am I— C-Chinese?” she managed to 
 stutter, but even as she said it she knew the words 
 weren’t English at all. She was actually speak- 
 ing and understanding another tongue entirely. 
 
 There was a thick silence. It seemed to last 
 for hours and hours. Then came Grandfather’s 
 voice booming through the dusky stillness: “A 
 demon has certainly stolen the child’s wits away.” 
 
 “‘ She’s been babbling strangely all night long,” 
 sighed Grandmother. “It’s the pain. We've all 
 been through it.” 
 
 “You never heard me ask who I was, 
 though!” sneered the Top-Lofty Aunt whose 
 feet were smaller than the smallest mouse you 
 ever saw. The Changs boasted about those feet! 
 
 “ The girl’s not worth her rice,” grunted the 
 Sour Aunt. (Her feet, alas, were unfashionably 
 large. Fully four inches long!) 
 
 “She never has been worth her rice, stupid 
 creature. However, since we’re all up, I suppose 
 the thing to do is to have her make the morning 
 offering to the kitchen god and then get us our 
 “early rice.’ Hurry up, slow-poke!” 
 
 [18 ] 
 
BECAUSE THE GOLDEN LILIES PINCHED 
 
 Cynthia was forced to hobble painfully to the 
 strangest-looking stove. Sleepy yawning aunts 
 stood over her giving her weary directions. 
 “Put the god in a good humor first, you silly!” 
 “ But I don’t see any—god,” Cynthia breathed 
 frantically, clasping her hands in dismay. Mercy 
 -on us, did these outrageous women think that 
 she was going to kneel down and worship a 
 heathen idol? Not she! Why she was a Sunday- 
 school-goer! She had been president of her 
 college Y. W. C. A.! She knew the Ten Com- 
 mandments by heart, and the first of those com- 
 mandments especially and clearly said that 
 But rude hands were poking her in the back, 
 shoving her forward, forcing her down on her 
 unwilling knees. Her forehead actually bumped 
 the floor, and what was this gibberish she was 
 muttering? 
 Come God of the Kitchen, 
 O Grandfather Chang! 
 Come, here is your pudding 
 And here is your tang. 
 Go fly up to heaven 
 
 Be gone in a trice, 
 Forget all the bad 
 
 And tell only what’s nice? 
 
 
 
 1 Translated by Isaac T. Headland. 
 
 [19 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 Evidently it had been an offering of food she 
 had laid before the paper picture on the wall over 
 the stove. 
 
 “Oh! Oh! Oh!” wailed Cynthia, scrambling 
 to her feet, horror-stricken. ‘‘ You’ve made me 
 break a commandment. Oh! Oh! Oh!” And 
 she cried such gallons of tears that she could not 
 see the rice or the rice-pots or the chop-sticks— 
 or anything else, for that matter. 
 
 “Commandment? ” echoed the aunts. 
 
 ““Y-yes, don’t you remember reading in 
 Exodus, the twentieth chapter, how God wrote 
 
 “ Reading?” echoed the aunts. 
 
 “The poor girl is out of her wits,” sighed 
 Grandmother, “‘ for who ever heard of a woman 
 reading?” 
 
 Who indeed? 
 
 Cynthia began to think that she really had 
 lost her wits. For things got “curiouser and 
 curiouser”’ all day long, as Alice once said in 
 Wonderland. For Cynthia never fully compre- 
 hended what her family meant, and _ they 
 were far from understanding her amazing stu- 
 pidity about the simplest events of life. For in- 
 stance, in the middle of the afternoon, when she 
 
 [ 20 | 
 
BECAUSE THE GOLDEN LILIES PINCHED 
 
 stood near the table waiting for the men and 
 boys in the family to eat their “late rice,” she 
 was mortified to see Grandfather throw his 
 chicken bone on the floor when he was through 
 with it. Then the Fat Uncle did the same untidy 
 thing! And as for the boy cousins who ate so 
 _ noisily, they, too, seemed to think that the floor 
 was the only place for the remains of food. 
 
 “Don’t!” ordered Cynthia in scandalized dis- 
 gust. 
 
 But Grandmother boxed her ears so soundly 
 for this shocking unheard-of rudeness to these 
 lordly elders, that Cynthia decided she really 
 could not stand the life in this gloomy peculiar 
 house another minute. She hobbled painfully 
 and secretly through one door, down a narrow 
 passage to another door, then through it to the 
 gate. Ah, the street! And freedom. 
 
 She hobbled along as fast as she could through 
 the mud. What unusual roofs the houses had— 
 they tipped up at the corners. She liked them, 
 but they made her homesick for the rounded 
 gables of a certain small white house so different 
 from this topsy-turvy world in which she found 
 herself at present. She could hardly believe that 
 she was she! And then suddenly, clearly, she 
 
 [ 21 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 heard voices singing. Oh, it was a clear song, a 
 dear song— 
 
 Sun of my soul, Thou Saviour dear, 
 It is not night if Thou be near. 
 
 “Tt’s Christians! Christians!” Cynthia 
 smiled, and danced eagerly toward the sound, 
 forgetting her bound feet, forgetting every- 
 thing but the bliss of reaching some one who 
 would understand her at last. 
 
 But would you believe it? 
 
 Just as she was about to rush in excitedly, a 
 woman—a sweet little Plain Gray Lady, lovely 
 to look at—barred the doorway entirely: “ Don’t 
 you darecomein! You don’t believe in missions! 
 If you had your way, you wouldn’t let us have 
 even this small rooftree for our own. You say 
 it is a perfect waste of money! Oh, no, I really 
 couldn’t let you in, for there’s happiness inside 
 here, and you mustn’t interrupt us. You really, 
 really mustn’t. Goaway! Go, go!” 
 
 “ But where else can I go? ” Cynthia wailed in 
 a small tired voice, for it looked so jolly inside. 
 Just a tiny little place, but such a shiny little 
 place, with its tidy blackboard and its rows of 
 smiling blue-clad children—their prim blue- 
 
 * [22] 
 
BECAUSE THE GOLDEN LILIES PINCHED 
 
 trousered legs hung down so quaintly from the 
 grown-up chairs. (‘‘ Mine would, too! Just like 
 that,” thought the little Cynthia wistfully, before 
 that closed door. ) 
 
 “ You can go straight to bed! ” ordered the Fat 
 Uncle puffing and blowing as he caught up with 
 _ her and dragged her back to the House-with-the- 
 Red-Tipped-Up-Roof. 
 
 “Oh, so this is the bed, is it?’ Cynthia asked 
 as she deposited herself on the brick kang again. 
 
 “ Keep still!’ roared the Fat Uncle. 
 
 She did. 
 
 But she thought all the harder. About this 
 sudden business of being Chinese: you had your 
 feet bound, which certainly was unhealthy; you 
 worshiped an idol, which certainly was unchris- 
 tian; you could not read or write, which cer- 
 tainly was uneducated; you dropped your chicken 
 bones and vegetable parings on the floor, which 
 certainly was untidy and unsanitary. 
 
 And all the time there was that one tiny shiny 
 house in town with children singing hymns. Oh, 
 if only she could have gotten indoors 
 
 “It’s a perfect waste of money!” a voice 
 which seemed to be her own American voice was 
 saying. 
 
 
 
 [ 23 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 “No! No! No!” cried her Chinese voice as 
 she banged her golden lilies on the hard brick 
 kang in protest at herself, until she felt the well- 
 known flick of Grandmother’s switch on her arm. 
 She cowered into the quilt and pretended to sleep 
 like twenty sound sleepers. Then, when she felt 
 sure that she was forgotten, she stealthily, quietly 
 sat up in bed; she stealthily, quietly slipped off 
 the kang; stealthily, quietly tiptoed through the 
 network of doors and passages to the kitchen. 
 She snatched some beans, some rice, a chicken 
 wing; she wrapped them in a piece of cloth and 
 tiptoed through the outer gateway to the street. 
 
 “Tl find another place where Christians have 
 a school,” she whispered to herself. But she 
 trudged all over town, from East Gate to West 
 Gate, from North Gate to South Gate, and there 
 was no other mission school. Not one! 
 
 “Oh, that’s too bad!” she sighed, not only for 
 herself but because the town was big, and the 
 only mission school was such a tiny, shiny little 
 place, not nearly big enough. And then she saw 
 a man with a wheelbarrow. The kind you ride 
 in, if you are Chinese. She bowed to him po- 
 litely, as you do bow, if you are Chinese, and 
 asked him if he could honorably condescend to 
 
 [ 24 ] 
 

 
 BECAUSE THE GOLDEN LILIES PINCHED 
 
 carry such a trifling nuisance as herself to the 
 next town in his wheelbarrow. She bowed again 
 as engagingly as she knew how, and said if it 
 weren’t for her golden lilies she could walk, of 
 course, but they were so painful and so ridicu- 
 lously useless. 
 
 “ Don’t use up the air in such flights of foolish 
 gabbling,” he said in a very brusque fashion. 
 * Why should you want to go to the next town? ”’ 
 
 “ Because there’ll be a school in the next town 
 and I want to finish my education. Don’t you 
 know of a school in the next town where girls 
 learn to read and write and multiply and subtract 
 and parse and locate cities and parles-vous fran- 
 GUESZ, = 
 
 “Tt can’t be done! ” he said in his blunt way. 
 
 “Oh, yes it can!” she almost answered, and 
 then very wisely changed into far more flowery 
 speech: ‘‘ Permit me modestly to differ from your 
 exalted words of wisdom, Honorable Sir, for it 
 can be done! It has been done! Insignificant as 
 I doubtless seem to you, I, even I, can read and 
 write and multiply and subtract and locate cities 
 and parse and parles-vous francats.” 
 
 “A demon has stolen the maid’s wits!” the 
 man exclaimed—a bit nervously, too. 
 
 [25 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 But Cynthia had an inspiration. Something 
 told her to hop up on his wheelbarrow. She 
 hopped. “ And now, if you will deign to bring 
 me something to read, I’ll read it for you,” she 
 promised, “but Ill not budge from this wheel- 
 barrow in any case until we reach the nearest 
 town where there’s a girl’s school.” 
 
 Now the man had no books or newspapers or 
 advertisements or letters or time-tables or any- 
 thing of that sort on hand, for the simple reason, 
 first, that he could not read a single word himself, 
 and, second, because there were no newspapers or 
 advertisements or time-tables in all that town. 
 Not one. But there was Cynthia. And there 
 was also his wheelbarrow. Inseparable, appar- 
 ently! 
 
 So, with a sigh, he started trundling her up- 
 hill and down-hill. Up-hill and down-hill. Up- 
 hill and down-hill. They went and they went, 
 but they never seemed to get anywhere. Cynthia 
 wished the wheelbarrow did not squeak so. 
 
 “Do you think that if you pressed a bean into 
 the works that the oil in the bean might stop the 
 squeak? ”’ she inquired politely, and opened her 
 bundle to get the bean. (I can’t imagine how she 
 knew that beans had oil in them, can you?) 
 
 [ 26 | 
 
BECAUSE THE GOLDEN LILIES PINCHED 
 
 “The bean is more likely to stop the squeak in 
 me,” said the man and popped it between his lips. 
 
 “Perhaps you would like another,’ Cynthia 
 smiled, for, after all, he was being very kind, and 
 it certainly was a long ride. She held out her 
 bundle toward him. 
 
 I am sorry to say that he helped himself gener- 
 ously to everything. All the beans. All the rice. 
 All the chicken wing. It made Cynthia’s mouth 
 water to hear him chew it with such gusto. 
 
 “There doesn’t seem to be much left for me,” 
 she announced gently. 
 
 “No, but you're left!” said the man, with a 
 scowl, and started trundling her once more, up- 
 hill and down-hill, up-hill and down-hill. And, 
 of course, the unpleasant squeak in the wheels 
 was as bad as ever. It sang a little tune. A 
 really horrid little tune. Monotonous. Hateful. 
 This is what it said: “ A perfect waste of money! 
 A perfect waste of money!” 
 
 It made the trip seem longer than ever. 
 
 “ Aren’t we nearly there? ” she asked. 
 
 “No, we aren’t,” said the man, and the veins 
 in his forehead stood out like ropes, from the 
 effort he had to make in pushing her up-hill. 
 
 “ Anyhow China’s a very pretty country, sir,” 
 
 [ 27 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 Cynthia remarked courteously, just to make con- 
 versation. She pointed at the flaming banks of 
 azaleas and the lovely purple hills ahead. 
 
 “Ts it?” asked the man. And the veins that 
 had been like ropes grew bigger than ever. Like 
 cables. 
 
 “ He is getting very tired,” Cynthia whispered 
 to herself. Aloud she finally ventured to say once 
 more: “I can hardly wait another minute! 
 Aren’t we really almost there? ” 
 
 “No, we aren’t,” snapped the mancrossly. “I 
 thought you understood when you started out 
 that schools for girls are so few and far between 
 in China that half the population never even 
 hear of them. I know, of course. Maybe I 
 didn’t look as if I knew when you first spoke to 
 me. But I did.” 
 
 “T’m sure you did,” said Cynthia soothingly, 
 and gently, for the veins which had been like 
 cables grew larger in size. Like pipes. 
 
 On and on and on and on they went, while the 
 abominable wheels kept squeaking at her: “A 
 per-fect w-waste of m-money? Oh, nev-er! No! 
 No! No!” It began to sound like the thud of 
 feet. Oh, surely it was the thud of feet. Cyn- 
 thia turned her head, and there—all up and down 
 
 [ 28 ] 
 
BECAUSE THE GOLDEN LILIES PINCHED 
 the hills and valleys in the road along which they 
 had come—was a procession of Chinese girls. 
 Blue-cotton trousered girls, trudging, trudging, 
 trudging, each with her bundle of beans and rice 
 for a journey. 
 
 “ Oh, look! ” cried Cynthia. ‘ Just look who’s 
 - behind you, sir.” 
 
 “TI know,” said the man. ‘“ Haven’t I been 
 pulling them along the entire route, Miss Stupid? 
 Isn’t that the reason why we’re so behind the 
 times—lagging while these girls caught up with 
 your lve had to pull them and pull them and 
 pull them to keep up their spirits. They think it’s 
 a hopeless excursion. But I’m determined that 
 if you are going to get an education they’re going 
 to get one, too. Why not? They’re every bit as 
 good as you!” 
 
 “ Are they? ” asked Cynthia, squirming around 
 in her seat until she sat riding backward to ad- 
 mire their darling rose-leaf cheeks, their lovely 
 slant eyes—some mischievous, some anxious, all 
 eager. 
 
 “Oh, I love them!” she cried. “I love every 
 blessed one of them! And look how they stretch 
 like a soft blue ribbon from here way out to the 
 horizon line, up-hill and down-hill like re 
 
 [ 29 ] 
 
 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 “ Weare here! ” the man interrupted. 
 
 “Why, sure enough! So we are,” she gasped, 
 surprised that in thinking of others she had 
 shortened her trip until she had really arrived at 
 the school. A sign over its gateway read, 
 “ Heavenly—Education—Instilling School.” 
 
 She stepped down from the wheelbarrow. 
 “We are here at our school!” she said to the 
 nearest girl, smiling. 
 
 “We are here at our school,” the nearest girl 
 said to the next nearest girl, who repeated it to the 
 next nearest, and so it went buzzing the length 
 of the line clear out to the dim horizon, until all 
 down the hills and the valleys the sound of it rose 
 like the murmur of bees: “Our school! Our 
 school! Weare here at our school! ” 
 
 Cynthia loved it. She ran through the gate- 
 way and rang a bell. A teacher came. It was 
 the same Plain Gray Lady-Teacher in the plain 
 gray dress, with an Ingersoll watch on her wrist. 
 The mere sight of such objects made Cynthia 
 burst forth in English: “ Oh, you’ll never guess 
 the funny funny time I’ve had in getting here! 
 But now I’ve come - 
 
 “Good gracious!” gasped the Plain Gray 
 Lady, horror-stricken. ‘ You’re that awful girl 
 
 [ 30 ] 
 
 
 
BECAUSE THE GOLDEN LILIES PINCHED 
 
 who wants to shut our schools. You say they are 
 a perfect waste of money. Go away from here at 
 once. I don’t think you ought to be allowed on 
 the premises; we can’t tell what you might do! 
 Go away! Go away!” And would you believe 
 it? She shut the door fast and bolted it safely 
 “against this terrible enemy. 
 
 And meanwhile the terrible enemy banged on 
 the panels with one hand and pressed on the bell 
 with the other: “Let me in!” she demanded. 
 “ve changed my mind. Open the door and let 
 mein. I take it all back, it isn’t a waste of money 
 at all, not when it means such adorable girls as 
 these. Oh, open the door—open it! Open it! 
 Open it! I’m as safe as a mouse. I’m as tame 
 asacat. I’masniceas you please. Oh, open the 
 door! Open the door!” 
 
 But the Plain Gray Lady inside had run to 
 spread the horrible news: “ There’s a girl out- 
 side. She’s the Girl-Who-Doesn’t-Believe-In- 
 Missions.” 
 
 “That one? Oh, the mean old thing!” cried 
 the blue-cotton pupils in terror. “ Don’t let her 
 get at us; she may try to send us back home. She 
 thinks we’re a perfect waste of money. Don’t 
 listen, dear honorable teacher, we pray you!”’ 
 
 [ 31 | 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 “My darlings, you’re safe!” said the Plain 
 Gray Lady, and they all stuffed their fingers in 
 their ears. 
 
 But meanwhile Cynthia thumped on that door: 
 “Tt’s not for myself that I’m asking!” she 
 shouted. “It’s for all these dear Chinese girls. 
 They’re so hot and so dusty and tired. They 
 hardly dare believe that Chinese girls can learn 
 to read—oh, let them in! Please let them in!” 
 
 But the door stayed shut. Tight shut. 
 
 She rang. She banged. She clanged. “Oh, 
 if you once could see them with their little bun- 
 dles in their arms and their faces all so eager and 
 soanxious. Pleaselet themin! Please! Please! 
 
 No answer. 
 
 But the very stillness seemed to echo down 
 those hills and valleys where the ribbon-line of 
 girls stood waiting wearily. 
 
 Cynthia pressed close against the panels, kiss- 
 ing them in a passion of unselfish longing: “O 
 lovely doors, open! Open! These girls must all 
 come in—please open! ” 
 
 But the winds of heaven whispered through 
 the treetops: “ It was this girl herself who closed 
 the doors. She said it was a perfect waste of 
 money to have missions.” 
 
 [ 32 ] 
 
BECAUSE THE GOLDEN LILIES PINCHED 
 
 The little Chinese birds up in those treetops hid 
 their heads beneath their Chinese wings for very 
 shame. The flowers by the wayside drooped and 
 died. And one by one the line of girls turned 
 straight around and started homeward. 
 
 “Tt was all too good to be true!” their wail 
 ‘went sighing down the hills and valleys. 
 
 But Cynthia knelt on the doorstep: “ What 
 have I done? Oh, what have I done?” she cried, 
 as the tramp of departing feet came thudding and 
 padding into her ears. “ How can I let them go 
 home to worship some useless old god of the 
 kitchen? ” 
 
 ‘“What’s this about a kitchen, darling Cyn?” 
 said a voice in her ear, as a kiss brought her to 
 an upright position. 
 
 “Oh, you knock for me!” she begged this 
 voice. “ Knock, and tell the Plain Gray Lady to 
 open the door and let the girls in. Quick! Quick! 
 Don’t be so slow or those girls will get home! ”’ 
 
 “Cynthia Drummond! Are you crazy?” 
 asked the voice. ‘“ What door? What girls?” 
 
 Cynthia opened her eyes. She saw a cool white 
 cabin. She saw a small white berth. She saw an 
 open port-hole. She heard the lapping of gentle 
 waves against the side of a steamer. She saw 
 
 [ 33 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 her roommate looking at her with startled eyes. 
 That long line of patiently waiting girls seemed 
 to have vanished into the bright morning air like 
 a dream, but Cynthia had an uncomfortable feel- 
 ing that they were waiting for her somewhere— 
 where was it, now? Where? Where? 
 
 She kissed her roommate, absentmindedly. 
 She dressed quickly. She did not even wait for 
 breakfast before finding the Plain Gray Lady. 
 
 “What sort of a China Shepherdess do you 
 think I would be?” she asked anxiously. 
 
 The Plain Gray Lady smiled: “ How should I 
 know? But I’ve been praying all night that God 
 would give me a chance to find out, for during 
 my talk yesterday I grew to loving you more and 
 more. But you looked so rebellious! I can’t help 
 but wonder what has made you so eager now?” 
 
 “ Mostly because I spent the night in another 
 girl’s shoes, and her golden lilies pinched me! 
 Then, too, every single detail of your talk became 
 such stuff as dreams are made of. But strangest 
 of all was the curious coincidence of your men- 
 tioning a China Shepherdess ws 
 
 The Plain Gray Lady made her confession: 
 “ There’s nothing strange about that! For every 
 time I pass your stateroom door I see her sitting 
 
 [ 34] 
 
 
 
BECAUSE THE GOLDEN LILIES PINCHED 
 
 on your table. So that it was the most natural 
 inspiration in the world to speak of a shepherdess 
 when you came wandering into my meeting yes- 
 terday and then started to wander out again so 
 indifferently.” 
 
 “T see! Well, life works out quite simply 
 “sometimes, doesn’t it? Here I am with nothing 
 whatever to do, and here you are with everything 
 todo. If you think you could use me, I certainly 
 want to be used.” 
 
 You do not need to be told the answer, do you? 
 
 [35 ] 
 

 

 
 ; an nh E 
 eeognybannnny oe 
 isi SEE 
 CHINAS 
 MILLIONS 
 STARTING’ 
 ovt 
 
 
 
 
 2000 
 
 Lee There is a 
 really fascinating 
 
 way to make these 
 millions of people: Take 
 “a piece of blue shelf-paper 
 and pleat it into three-inch fold. 
 
 
 
 ated Draw a Chinese man on the out- 
 4 fpnenedl side fold, so that his sleeves reach the 
 Sen aae edge of the paper. Cut out just as many 
 
 PASS! folds at one time as possible; since the sleeves 
 
 will be joined, the men will hold one another 
 up, and by repeating your cut-outs a long line will stretch from 
 the front to the back of a table, where a Chinese wall should 
 be built, either of building blocks or of corrugated cardboard. 
 It would also be interesting to place on the table first two home- 
 made maps, one of the United States, the other of China, and 
 prove to everybody’s satisfaction that if Pekin really sits down 
 on Philadelphia the Eastern coast-lines of both countries will 
 coincide. 
 
Mm Ui priate rt 
 AAT aS FAT 
 
 “ Don’t throw in your hook where there are no fish.” 
 
 “ Better return home and make a net than go down to the sea 
 and desire great fishes.” 
 
 “The large fish eat the small fish; the small fish eat the water 
 insects; the water insects eat water plants and mud.” 
 
III 
 MISS MARCO POLO DISCOVERS CHINA 
 
 _ CYNTHIA was always being nicknamed—Cyn, 
 Bo-Peep, the China Shepherdess; but the latest 
 was Miss Marco Polo because she was about to 
 discover China exactly as that ancient explorer 
 had done back in the thirteenth century, only 
 Cynthia’s discoveries were made in a deck-chair 
 on a steamer in mid-ocean with cheerful missiona- 
 ries offering all the facts she ought to know. 
 
 “T’m afraid the only Polo about me will be 
 this polo coat,” she sighed, stroking her shaggy 
 top-coat regretfully, “for it’s shocking to have 
 known the name ‘ China’ all my life and yet 
 to be so really ignorant about it.” 
 
 “ What do you know to begin with?” she was 
 asked. 
 
 She knit her brows: “ Well, only very sketchy 
 facts, such as the yellow-skinned people, the fa- 
 mous Chinese wall, bound feet, sedan-chairs. 
 Just things like that.” 
 
 “Enough to begin on,” the Plain Gray Lady 
 assured her, “ but I think one of us should volun- 
 
 [39 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 teer at once to teach this child Chinese geog- 
 raphy?” 
 
 “T, I, sir!” laughed a volunteer. 
 
 “ Anybody primed with history? ” 
 
 pL Lereiettl er eres 
 
 “ Count on me!” 
 
 “We'll all chip in occasionally,” the others 
 added with such purpose in their voices that 
 Cynthia rushed off to get a note-book. 
 
 “China, my child, is a very big land,” the 
 geography teacher began, in such a stiff school- 
 marm fashion that Cynthia buried her head in 
 her note-book and shook with laughter. 
 
 “Yes, ma’am,” she finally said meekly, wiping 
 her eyes, “ just how big a land might it be, if you 
 please? ”’ 
 
 “As I was about to state when interrupted by 
 your unseemly levity, if one should lay the United 
 States plus Alaska on top of China there would 
 be room enough left on the margins for a fringe 
 of half a dozen Great Britains and Irelands.” 
 
 “Thank you,” Miss Marco Polo said, writing 
 down, “ Size of China = 1 United States + 1 
 Alaska + 6 Great Britains + 6 Irelands.” 
 
 “Also, dear pupil, the east coast of China is 
 shaped so much like the east coast of the United 
 
 [ 40 ] 
 
MISS MARCO POLO DISCOVERS CHINA 
 
 States that if you should lay a map of China on 
 a map of the United States with Peking at its 
 latitude of 39° on top of Philadelphia at its lati- 
 tude of 39° the two outlines would correspond 
 very neatly. Does this suggest anything to your 
 geographical instincts? ” 
 
 ~ “Tt suggests climate,” said the dear pupil 
 brightly. “One climate like the other climate. 
 And probably similar vegetation.” 
 
 “Mark her 100!” gasped the remainder of 
 the faculty. 
 
 “Sh!” ordered the geography teacher sternly. 
 “ Correct, my child. Oranges, rice, and cotton, 
 in the south; wheat, corn, and beans, in the north, 
 as well as apples, peaches, pears, and grapes in 
 season.” 
 
 Miss Marco Polo scribbled hastily, as her 
 teacher added: “ Please note that China is di- 
 vided into eighteen provinces, that it’s a republic, 
 and draw a little five-barred flag, the red stripe 
 on top standing for the Chinese within China’s 
 republic, the yellow for the Manchus, the blue for 
 the Mongolians, the white for the Tibetans, and 
 the black for the Mohammedans.” 
 
 * Next—population!” interrupted another pro- 
 fessor reeling off statistics so fast that Cynthia’s 
 
 Let] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 pencil point wore down to the wood as she tried 
 to write everything down: “ Four hundred mil- 
 lion people in China = four times as many as 
 the population of the United States, or = the 
 population of the United States + Great Britain 
 + Germany + Austria + France + Russia ‘++ 
 Italy + a few other small countries.” 
 
 “Too big!” gasped Cynthia. “ I can’t seem to 
 grasp what that means.” 
 
 “Tt means that one-fourth of all the human 
 race is Chinese,” explained the geography 
 teacher. : 
 
 “Tt means that every fourth baby in the world 
 coos up into the face of a Chinese mother!” sup- 
 plemented the Plain Gray Lady. 
 
 “It means, too, that every fourth bride is 
 dressed in Chinese red.” 
 
 “It means that every fourth person kneels be- 
 fore a Chinese joss.” 
 
 “ Oh, I see! ” Cynthia nodded. 
 
 “Oh no, you don’t,” sighed her professor, 
 “you couldn’t live long enough to see them all! 
 Suppose I formed them in rank joining hands, 
 then those four hundred millions could girdle the 
 globe at the equator ten times over! Or suppose 
 I made them into pilgrims and let two thousand 
 
 [ 42 | 
 

 
 MISS MARCO POLO DISCOVERS CHINA 
 
 
 
 of them walk past you every day and every night 
 —you’d hear their ceaseless tramp! tramp! 
 tramp! for five hundred years! ” 
 
 “No,” Cynthia agreed solemnly, “I couldn’t 
 possibly livelong enough. [really couldn’t. But 
 how you ever figured this out by yourself I simply 
 ‘cannot imagine.” 
 
 “Thank you for thinking I could,” her pro- 
 fessor said gratefully, “ but as a matter of fact, 
 I cribbed all the facts from Doctor Gracey’s little- 
 great book called ‘China In Outline,’ he has a 
 real genius for making figures live. You can’t 
 forget, the way he puts them. For instance, I 
 remember he computed that the Chinese die at 
 the rate of thirty-three thousand a day. He said 
 it would be just as if we buried all the people in 
 New York City in three months! Or all the peo- 
 ple in the United States in less than four years! 
 I was literally staggered when I read those 
 figures. I don’t mind telling you that they sent 
 me straight to a medical college so that China 
 could have at least one new doctor as soon as 
 possible.” 
 
 “ And a mighty good doctor! ” said the history 
 professor as he took his turn in the teacher’s 
 chair. ‘‘ Now that you’ve got the lay of the land 
 
 [43 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 and an inkling of the number of people, it’s high 
 time you began to be impressed about those peo- 
 ple, little Miss Marco Polo.” 
 
 “ But I am impressed,” this latest Chinese ex- 
 plorer insisted, ‘“‘ indelibly impressed.” 
 
 “Possibly. But impressed with mere quantity. 
 We now proceed to show you that quality goes 
 hand in hand. Asa slight comparison in antiqui- 
 ties, how long ago did the Pilgrims first settle in 
 America?” 
 
 Cynthia subtracted hastily: “ Three hundred 
 and four years ago.” 
 
 “Yes. But three hundred and four years is 
 a mere nothing as the Chinese reckon time. Try 
 again. America goes back to Christopher Co- 
 lumbus; how many years ago?” 
 
 “ Four hundred and thirty-two years ago,” an- 
 swered the arithmetical explorer, hoping that this 
 would be a date to match up well with China. 
 
 But no! “ My child, when Columbus set foot 
 on our crude rude shores, the Chinese were al- 
 ready such a highly civilized people that they had 
 just completed a great canal 1,200 miles long, 
 which is still in use today.” 
 
 “ Dear me!” exclaimed Miss Marco Polo. 
 
 Her professor enjoyed her surprise. “ Yet 
 
 [ 44 ] 
 
MISS MARCO POLO DISCOVERS CHINA 
 
 even that is nothing compared to the fact that 
 way back in the days when Abraham was travel- 
 ing by camelback from Ur of the Chaldees, Chi- 
 nese astronomers were recording observations 
 which modern scientists find perfectly accurate. 
 When Moses was leading the children of Israel 
 through the Red Sea, China was 700 years old 
 and had laws, literature, religion such as she has 
 today. A hundred years before David wrote the 
 Psalms, an emperor of China named Wung 
 Wang was composing classics which Chinese 
 scholars are still memorizing. A thousand years 
 ago the Chinese were selling silk to the Romans 
 who had no such fabrics of their own, while 
 your ancestors and mine were savage Britons 
 daubed with blue paint, fishing from tree-trunk 
 canoes. China’s great wall was built over two 
 hundred years before Christ was born. The 
 Chinese had invented a compass, fire-arms, gun- 
 powder, printing-presses, and paper hundreds of 
 years before our forefathers ever dreamed of 
 such things. In fact, Chinese records reach 
 backward through four thousand rich years of 
 literature, fine arts, and everything else.” 
 
 Miss Marco Polo had discovered far more 
 than she expected. Her note-book dangled from 
 
 [45 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 one hand, her pencil from the other as she said 
 in an awed voice: “ But this is simply stupen- 
 dous! How dare we little three-hundred-year- 
 old Americans go to a land four-thousand-years- . 
 old with anything? ” 
 
 Every one answered at once: 
 
 “ They invented—but their religion never gave 
 them enough ‘push’ to make the inventions 
 count to the full.” 
 
 “China has more coal and iron than all the rest 
 of the world put together, but she has never dared 
 mine it for fear of the dragon down under the 
 earth. Tickle his ribs? Disturb his slumbers? 
 No, never! So she freezes in winter.” 
 
 “Half of the time the Chinese were afraid of 
 their own inventions—beyond a certain point the 
 gods would not be pleased to have mortals go.” 
 
 “Custom! Age-old custom, the bane of China 
 —‘ whatever grandfather did, do now!’ ” 
 
 “T see,’ Cynthia nodded. “And, if you 
 please, I’d love to hear more about the famous 
 wall, for I know it’s one of the seven wonders of 
 the world, without realizing why.” 
 
 It was a fascinating story in itself, this tale of 
 the Emperor Chin Shih Huang who began ruling 
 when he was only thirteen years old. A born 
 
 [ 46 ] 
 
MISS MARCO POLO DISCOVERS CHINA 
 
 hustler, however, considering the things he ac- 
 complished in his life-time. Among other things, 
 he was constantly annoyed by the wild Tartar 
 tribes on the north who would come sweeping 
 south destroying cities and towns on the way. 
 Emperor Chin had an inspiration: he would build 
 a wall and keep them out! And the wall should 
 stretch from the ocean on the east to Tibet on 
 the west. What matter if it needed to be fifteen 
 thousand miles long? It is said that it took eight 
 million men to build it, of brick and stone and 
 lime. Up-hill and down-hill it stretches, any- 
 where from twenty to sixty feet high, and so 
 wide that two carts can pass side by side on it, 
 or six horsemen ride abreast. The Chinese call 
 it the “ Ten-thousand-li-Wall,” and although it 
 was built over two thousand years ago, it is still 
 standing in almost perfect condition. 
 
 It was at this point that the Man-Who-Loved- 
 Statistics offered another gem: “ There’s enough 
 material in that wall to build a smaller wall six 
 feet high around the entire globe! ” 
 
 “Tf you keep on putting things around the 
 globe [ll never get to China!” Cynthia warned 
 him. “And my hat’s off to your Mr. Chin! I 
 suppose China was named for him? ” 
 
 [ 47 | 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 “Tt was. But I wonder if you will keep on 
 liking him when I tell you that he wanted to be 
 known as the first of all the emperors, so he or- 
 dered that every book in the empire should be col- 
 lected and burned. I have seen the village built 
 today on the ‘ Slope of the Burning Books ’ where 
 Emperor Chin made his enormous bonfire of all 
 the old Confucian books. That was crime 
 enough, but he had a deep pit dug in which nearly 
 three hundred luckless scholars were buried alive 
 up to their necks, after which heavy chariots were 
 driven over their heads—and all because they 
 would not give up their books. Are you still 
 liking the old gentleman? ” 
 
 Cynthia’s eyes were like saucers: “No! No! 
 What a horrible person! I suppose there wasn’t 
 a book left?” | 
 
 “Not on paper. But the Chinese have pro- 
 digious memories. Each generation inherits the 
 faculty of learning the classics poll-parrot 
 fashion, so that after Chin died another emperor 
 was able to find an old man, named Fu Sheng, 
 who could repeat all the ‘ Five Classics’ from 
 memory. But he was over ninety years old and 
 his hand far too unsteady to paint the characters, 
 Even his voice was too husky and thick for any- 
 
 [ 48 ] 
 
MISS MARCO POLO DISCOVERS CHINA 
 
 body else to understand except his grand- 
 daughter, a little girl of thirteen. So it was her 
 hand which wrote down every single one of those 
 five books, which present-day Chinese scholars 
 memorize.” 
 
 “Hurrah for the thirteen-year-old lassie who 
 got the better of a thirteen-year-old laddie! AI- 
 though I suppose Emperor Chin was grown up 
 by the time he burned the books. And now I’m 
 going to admit frankly that the more I know of 
 China the more I marvel how the first missiona- 
 _ ries dared to go there! Indeed, I marvel how 
 I dare go myself, stupid me! But of course it’s 
 safe nowadays, and so many Chinese want us 
 and welcome us. But wasn’t it quite different in 
 the early days? ” 
 
 “Quite different,” came a chorus of voices, 
 each quick to add an illustration: 
 
 “Take the case of Robert Morrison, for 
 instance : 
 
 “And Peter Parker with his lancet a 
 
 “As for John Kenneth MacKenzie 4 
 
 “ Don’t leave out James Gilmour, for he was a 
 Robinson Crusoe if ever anybody was one!” 
 
 “Wait till you hear about Hudson Taylor 
 
 +P] 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 [ 49 | 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 Cynthia opened her note-book once more: 
 “ Tell me!” she cried eagerly. “ But do tell me 
 one at a time—lI’ve only two ears and one 
 brain! ” 
 
 The next few chapters are what they told her, 
 one at a time. 
 
 [50] 
 

 
 No, this is not a porcupine! Nor a pin-cushion! It is the 
 manikin which the quack doctors of China study when they 
 want to locate the seven hundred places where it is supposedly 
 safe to puncture a patient’s body. You can model such a manikin 
 from moulding clay, then stick it full of bristling needles to show 
 what a painfully ignorant person any Dr. Pincushion must be. 
 
 It will be quite simple to cut out enough pill-bottles from white 
 cardboard to distribute to each of your class (four can be cut 
 out at one time). Color the corks brown and the cross red. 
 On the remainder of the label let each person write the Bible 
 verse which seems to him or her the most appropriate for a 
 Christian doctor to quote to a poor Chinese patient. 
 
minmstetn 
 PRAM <O mt 
 
 “ When one leaf moves all the branches shake.” 
 
 “Past events are clear as a mirror; future events are as dark 
 as lacquer.” 
 
 “A doctor kills his patients but he suffers no penalty.” (?) 
 
IV 
 OPENING CHINA WITH A LANCET 
 
 _ You can lay a peck of Chinese trouble any day 
 at Doctor Pincushion’s door, for of all the quacks 
 on earth he is the worst, yet for a thousand years 
 at least he and his predecessors have been prac- 
 tising their peculiar brand of learning on the sick 
 of China—Goose-feather Poultices? Tiger-hair 
 Broth? Spider Soups? 
 
 “Oh well, these are only mild medicines,” 
 boasts the modest Doctor Pincushion, impor- 
 tantly. “If you are really sick I can concoct still 
 stronger pills from a combination of old rusty 
 coffin-nails, bats’ wings, dried scorpions, snake- 
 skins, cockroaches, tigers’ teeth, a sliver of your 
 grandmother’s finger-nail, and perhaps a little 
 mud from the middle of your fireplace. Pretty 
 strong! Strong enough to drive out twenty de- 
 mon-dragons from your honorable insides.” 
 
 But just in case your demon-dragon does not 
 “exit? even after such pills, then Doctor Pin- 
 cushion knows the cure of cures. For in his 
 home he keeps a little wooden model of a man 
 
 [ 53] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 bristling with several hundred little spikes—oh, 
 a very pincushion of a fellow, he! And several 
 hundred other spikeless spots freckle this curious 
 manikin to show where needles can be poked in 
 a human patient without killing him. 
 
 Solemnly Doctor Pincushion approaches you. 
 Solemnly he sticks his long sharp needle into a 
 corresponding spot upon your suffering body: 
 “To let the pain demon escape,” he explains, 
 pompously. And if your particular little demon 
 does not rush out through the first hole, you will 
 remember that there are several hundred other 
 places where Doctor Pincushion can puncture 
 you. 
 
 “No! No! No!” you scream in a panic. 
 “This is ridiculous. This can never cure me.” 
 
 “Oh, very well,” says your ever-ready quack, 
 and heats a coin red-hot, putting it where the pain 
 is worst, for surely any such torture ought to 
 frighten off.the most bold of evil spirits. Per- 
 haps you still feel that pain? He is not without 
 other remedies. He solemnly advocates shaking, 
 since in the process the little spiteful demon will 
 surely be dislodged and seek a more steady rest- 
 ing-place. 
 
 Your fond relatives are nothing if not oblig- 
 
 [ 94 ] 
 
OPENING CHINA WITH A LANCET 
 
 ing! They shake you and shake you and shake 
 you, until you see stars, until the floor flies up to 
 the ceiling, and the ceiling sails around like a 
 cloud. 
 
 “Oh, I want a real doctor!’ you call, ungrate- 
 fully overlooking the many ideas your resource- 
 ful quack has suggested. 
 
 “ But I’m all the doctor there is!”’ he assures 
 you. And you have learned the dreadful fact 
 that for hundreds and thousands of years China 
 has known nothing better than this, that the 
 _ Doctor Pincushions of other years have had only 
 one manner of diagnosing disease: by the pulse. 
 It is not necessary to see the patient—no; simply 
 place your right hand on a book to steady it and 
 let Doctor Pincushion press three fingers on the 
 pulse in one wrist—how hard he thinks! For 
 from this pulse he thinks he can learn the condi- 
 tion of your lungs and heart. Now please let him 
 feel the other pulse, for then he can guess about 
 your stomach and your liver. Pure guesswork, 
 naturally, but Doctor Pincushion is so courteous, 
 so willing to make another guess if the others 
 were wrong. 
 
 “Five tubes lead from the mouth to the stom- 
 ach,” he informs you, “ soup must go down the 
 
 [ 59 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 soup-tube and rice go down the rice-tube. But if 
 soup goes down the rice-tube, and rice goes down 
 the soup-tube there will be trouble! Now per- 
 haps that is what ails you today!” 
 
 Perhaps! 
 
 And this is all China had for so long. It 1s all 
 that half of China has now. Except, of course, 
 that there are charms written on special yellow 
 charm-paper to be written out and pasted up 
 around the sick-room or even on the patient’s 
 forehead. The ashes of such charms when 
 burned ought to be a marvelous remedy. You 
 have swallowed them many times when every- 
 thing else failed. 
 
 But your greatest trouble comes if your eyes 
 are dim or in pain, for then Doctor Pincushion 
 has two cures: he tries putting ground glass in 
 your eye. What? It hurts! Of course it hurts 
 —perhaps he will puncture the eyeball with one of 
 his needles to let in more light; after which you 
 are blind indeed—stumbling by night, groping by 
 day; praying to your Chinese gods to help you, 
 laying rice upon their shrines, begging, pleading, 
 hoping that some day—somewhere—somehow— 
 you can be helped. 
 
 All this, and worse, Robert Morrison saw when 
 
 [56 ] 
 

 
 OPENING CHINA WITH A LANCET 
 
 he was so busy translating the Bible inside that 
 quiet lonely room of his. He knew it had been 
 going on for years and years; but would it go on 
 for ages more? 
 
 Not if Dr. Peter Parker knew it! For exactly 
 two months after Mr. Morrison’s death this fine 
 young American doctor landed in China; and 
 would you believe it? before he left home people 
 said it was a pity for a young man of such talents 
 “to throw himself away on the heathen.” But 
 down in his heart he knew that to the great Lord 
 Of All the yellow-skinned people were as dear as 
 the white-skinned, and far more in need of a 
 doctor. 
 
 And you, so blind and hopeless only a few 
 paragraphs back in this story, what are you going 
 to think of this newcomer? Will you go rushing 
 for a prescription on the opening day? Oh, 
 mercy no! You wag your head in terror and tell 
 me the most outrageous stories: how this horrible 
 white devil doctor from over the ocean makes his 
 medicine from the eyes and hearts of kidnapped 
 Chinese children! Everybody in Canton believes 
 it. Also he grinds their baby bones to powder; he 
 stews their limbs and corks them up in bottles. 
 
 It was no wonder, therefore, that on Doctor 
 
 [ 57 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 Parker’s first day in his new hospital only one 
 lone, lorn woman ventured in; I dare say her 
 heart was beating like a trip-hammer as she won- 
 dered what stiff magic might hurt her any mo- 
 ment. But only three months later Doctor 
 Parker was prescribing for a hundred or more 
 patients each day—people from all classes: beg- 
 gars in rags, stately officials, richly gowned 
 ladies, everybody came! Some of the patients 
 would come the night before in order to get first 
 place in the line at the gateway, sleeping on their 
 mats spread near the door. The Chinese never 
 heard of such magic cures. No one seemed to be 
 too sick for Doctor Parker! 
 
 Fascinating stories are told of his patients. 
 One old gentleman of Canton who had not seen 
 for years and years was so delighted when 
 Doctor Parker restored his sight that he begged 
 to have a Chinese artist paint the doctor’s por- 
 trait in order that he might hang it up in his 
 house and bow before it every morning! 
 
 Doctor Parker specialized in eye troubles, and 
 one day his fame traveled two hundred miles 
 from Canton to a little town where a certain 
 young man was greatly worried about his old 
 blind mother. He decided that a good son would 
 
 [ 58 ] 
 
OPENING CHINA WITH A LANCET 
 
 certainly take his mother to this remarkable man! 
 Well, wasn’t he a good son? Therefore he must 
 take her at once. He was much too poor to hire 
 a sedan-chair and coolies to carry it, but he po- 
 litely bundled the old lady on one side of his 
 wheelbarrow, with bedding and rice-bags to bal- 
 ance on the other side; and away he started. 
 
 His neighbors were scandalized: “ Go slowly! 
 Go slowly!” they warned him. ‘ You will send 
 the poor old lady as a guest on high! Surely she 
 will join her ancestors before you reach Canton.” 
 
 “Rest your hearts!” he answered. “ She will 
 not die.” 
 
 But he was not so certain as he sounded. He 
 trundled the heavy wheelbarrow up-hill and 
 down-hill; in each strange village the crowds in 
 the street would question him curiously: “ Where 
 are you taking the ancient? ” 
 
 “To a Christian’s hospital in Canton to get 
 new eyes.” 
 
 “Christians? But those over-the-ocean men 
 use magic! You will be bewitched! Dear, dear, 
 what a crazy man you are!” 
 
 All along his route, day after day, that son saw 
 nothing but wagging heads and sneering lips. 
 Finally he reached Canton. The doctor ex- 
 
 [59 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 amined her eyes—yes! a delicate and serious 
 operation might save her old eyes. He operated. 
 For two wonderful months she lay in that hos- 
 pital cot hearing every day the surprising story 
 of Jesus Christ. She listened—she loved it—she 
 believed. And in two months she could see! 
 Surely you can picture their journey homeward. 
 How at every stop in all those little villages peo- 
 ple would swarm around that wheelbarrow, 
 crying: 
 
 “Why, here you are! Here you are 
 
 “Here Iam!” she chuckled. “ Seeing! . Re- 
 joicing! And I have a new God—listen!” It 
 took far longer to reach home than it had taken 
 to go to Canton because the new Christians tar- 
 ried everywhere along the way to tell their won- 
 derful news of a Saviour. They opened their 
 precious Bible. The son read aloud from it. 
 The mother explained it. It makes us think how 
 happy Robert Morrison would have felt to see 
 his Bible being prized so dearly. That wheel- 
 barrow left behind it, through two hundred miles 
 of Chinese country, a new string of little towns 
 interested in Christianity. Multiply the one 
 wheelbarrow by countless other vehicles full of 
 delighted patients, and you will understand why 
 
 [ 60 J 
 
 {?? 
 
OPENING CHINA WITH A LANCET 
 
 Peter Parker could say about himself a remark 
 famous today all over the world: 
 
 “I have opened China at the point of a 
 lancet!” 
 
 When Doctor Parker had his first furlough 
 home in America he was invited to preach before 
 Congress in Washington to an audience made up 
 of senators and representatives. His sermon 
 must have been quite different from any those 
 men had ever heard before, for he told about his 
 Canton hospital where 8,000 patients had been 
 treated in five years; he told stories of those pa- 
 tients—how one old man who had had cataracts 
 on his eyes for over forty years had a successful 
 operation and said, stroking his long flowing 
 beard, “I have lived till my beard has become 
 long and hoary, but never before have I seen or 
 heard of one who does such things as are done in 
 this hospital! ” 
 
 It was remarks like this which gave Doctor 
 Parker such a perfect chance to explain about the 
 Greatest Physician Of All who long years ago in 
 Galilee had opened the eyes of the blind and 
 preached the gospel to the poor, ever promising 
 His followers, however, “ Greater works than 
 these shall ye do because I go to My Father.” 
 
 [ 61 ] 
 

 
When a little circle of listeners has heard the story of Eleanor 
 Chestnut, surely they will more easily remember that their hands 
 count, too, if you distribute pencils and a number of paper hands, 
 one to each person, so that on the palm may be written the verse 
 given in the story, ‘ Christ has no hands but our hands.” 
 
 Draw an outline of your own left hand on a sheet of paper to 
 get a pattern; then cut out at least ten thicknesses of paper at 
 one time. 
 
mm prla-——snM 
 La A Tih aD A 
 
 “Better do a good deed near at home than go far away to 
 burn incense.” 
 
 “Tf you walk on snow you cannot hide your footprints.” 
 
 “ A wise man in a fool’s service is a clear pearl thrown into 
 lacquer.” 
 
V 
 HANDS ACROSS THE’ SEA 
 
 - CYNTHIA says that when she first went to 
 Sunday school, long years ago in the primary 
 department, she remembers how she used to 
 throw back her cunning golden head, and warble 
 her very loveliest when the children sang “I 
 Think When I Read that Sweet Story of Old.” 
 Her especially favorite verse began: 
 
 I wish that His hands had been placed on my head, 
 That His arms had been thrown around me, 
 
 And that I might have seen His kind look when He said: 
 “ Let the little ones come unto Me.” 
 
 She says that all her life she has wondered 
 how it would be to feel those dear kind wonderful 
 hands. 
 
 “ And, do you know? on shipboard the mis- 
 sionaries told me stories which seemed to answer 
 all my years of wondering. But the especial 
 story was about Eleanor Chestnut. Somehow, 
 when they told me of Robert Morrison and Peter 
 Parker and Hudson Taylor I felt actually too lit- 
 
 [ 65 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 tle and unimportant for words. I went to my 
 stateroom and cried. I said to the Plain Gray 
 Lady: ‘I couldn’t possibly follow in their foot- 
 steps! I’m not nearly big enough or brave 
 enough or wise enough or patient enough. Why, 
 I’m not going to be any sort of good as a mis- 
 sionary! I decided too impulsively, I fear. For 
 I see now that I’ll get tired and discouraged and 
 —and cross. You'll want to pack me straight 
 home. I remember you told me that in the early 
 days of Chinese Christianity somebody called it 
 the not-to-be-knocked-down-doctrine. Well, I’m 
 the kind that could easily be knocked down. I’m 
 not a heroine. I’m just little Miss Cynthia 
 Drummond.’ But oh! if you could have heard 
 my Plain Gray Lady talk, then you’d understand 
 why I’m still on the job! ” 
 
 For the Plain Gray Lady repeated softly: 
 “Little Miss Cynthia Drummond: A China 
 Shepherdess. But it sounds all right to me, my 
 dear.” 
 
 “Sounds! Yes, maybe! But can’t you see I 
 haven’t a single shining talent? Imagine me 
 living alone, like James Gilmour! Or fighting 
 mobs, like Hudson Taylor! Or translating 
 Bibles, like Robert Morrison! I’m the most 
 
 [ 66 ] 
 
HANDS ACROSS THE SEA 
 
 ordinary girl—you have no idea how ordinary I 
 am,” Cynthia said dismally. 
 
 “Really?” laughed the Plain Gray Lady. 
 “That’s a very wholesome feeling, you know. 
 Especially when you have a pair of hands.” She 
 picked up Cynthia’s hands and looked at them 
 intently. “Suppose I tell you a story about a 
 pair of hands belonging to a girl who never had 
 half your chances.”’ 
 
 And this is the story she told of Eleanor Chest- 
 nut: “Almost any American girl has had an 
 easier life than she ever had, because her parents 
 died when she was so little that she grew up poor 
 and needing to work for all her tuition, clothes, 
 and board through school and college, and later 
 through medical college as well. Her best friend 
 writes of those days, ‘ Eleanor lived in an attic, 
 cooked her own meals and nearly starved.’ But 
 she had decided to train herself for medical mis- 
 sionary service, and in time she found herself in 
 China, in charge of a hospital at Lien-chou. She 
 was often lonely there, for much of the time there 
 were no other missionaries. When the terrible 
 Boxer crisis seemed to be passing her mission by, 
 she wrote home to America, ‘I don’t think we 
 are in danger, but even if we are we might as well 
 
 [ 67 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 die suddenly in God’s work as by some long- 
 drawn-out illness at home.’ Which shows what 
 stuff she was made of! 
 
 “ After seven years she came home to Amer- 
 ica on furlough, speaking in many, many 
 churches about China until she raised $1,000 to 
 build a chapel in Lien-chou. And you would have 
 said that she ought to have a long life of useful- 
 ness ahead of her. Yet the very next year there 
 was a curious misunderstanding about some re- 
 ligious festival in Lien-chou, and the Chinese in 
 that town became a furious mob, seizing the mis- 
 sion, burning all the buildings, murdering all the 
 missionaries, two of whom were a young married 
 couple who had arrived only the day before. 
 
 “Can you picture that scene? Our little Dr. 
 Eleanor Chestnut with all the ills of the town 
 resting on her shoulders, with all the plans for 
 the future forming in her head! But what does 
 that mob care for plans? See, they are rushing 
 her down to the temple steps at the foot of a very 
 large tree. There she sits, waiting her turn to 
 die, with ten thousand confused thoughts swing- 
 ing through her mind. And then, out of the ten 
 thousand confused thoughts, one thought—a lit- 
 tle boy! A little boy in that seething mob! A 
 
 [ 68 ] 
 
HANDS ACROSS THE SEA 
 
 little boy with an ugly gash in his head! And she 
 alone in all that town knew how to heal him. 
 
 “Oh, not a moment to lose now! See, she calls 
 him over, she tears off the hem of her dress, she 
 cleans the wound as best she can, she binds it 
 up with skilled, kind fingers, and none too soon, 
 for see! the mob is striking her—they throw her 
 into the river—she lies there as if asleep—but 
 they stab her—and stab her. Yet Eleanor Chest- 
 nut is not dead to me, for in every touch I have 
 ever put on the head of a Chinese boy I feel in my 
 own clumsy fingers the sudden gentleness of 
 Eleanor Chestnut’s touch on the head of that 
 other boy. It has seemed to me that her sacrifice 
 must not be in vain! 
 
 “ Occasionally I tell my little blue-cotton pupils 
 about her. They nod their Chinese heads so ear- 
 nestly, their lovely Chinese eyes glow through 
 their tears. ‘The hands of Eleanor Chestnut’ is 
 a term we often use in dealing with our girls. 
 For you know they, too, must often suffer perse- 
 cution, especially when they speak at home about 
 becoming Christians. Often whipped! Often 
 starved! Often turned out-of-doors and dis- 
 owned! So the story means something very real 
 indeed to them. ‘The hands of Eleanor Chest- 
 
 [ 69 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 nut ’ on the head of a little boy, a little boy in the 
 mob when the mob was at its wildest. It seems 
 to me that the Saviour Himself has written of 
 her hands in His special book of remembrance.” 
 
 Cynthia looked down at her own hands, 
 skeptically; slim hands—young hands—untried 
 hands. She slid them hastily between the hands 
 of the Plain Gray Lady: “ Won’t you pray that 
 my hands will be some good 1n China? ” 
 
 “** Establish Thou the work of our hands, O 
 Lord, yea, the work of our hands establish Thou 
 it,’ ’’ was all the Plain Gray Lady said. 
 
 But that night, on deck, as Cynthia sat in a 
 patch of silver moonlight, thinking, she suddenly 
 realized with great surprise that there would be 
 little boys and girls in China who would never 
 feel the Saviour’s hands placed on their heads 
 unless they felt her hands; and she quoted: 
 
 Christ has no hands but our hands 
 To do His work today ; 
 
 He has no feet but our feet 
 To lead men in His way; 
 
 He has no tongues but our tongues 
 To tell men how He died; 
 
 He has no help but our help 
 To bring them to His side. 
 
 [70 ] 
 
HANDS ACROSS THE SEA 
 
 “‘Oh, it seems to me that I really can’t wait to 
 get there and begin,” said Cynthia, looking out 
 over the silver waves toward the place where 
 China lay. And just then the ship’s bell sounded 
 several times, while a sailor’s voice from some- 
 where high up called down: 
 
 ** All’s well! ” 
 
 [71] 
 

 

 
 A Boat-With-An-Eye can be made from a piece of brown card- 
 board, a square brown box, and a small piece of tan matting or 
 - grass cloth. Draw a side view of the junk as shown here, with a 
 high poop at the rear. From the cardboard cut the two sides 
 of the boat; paste the square brown box between these two sides 
 in the rear, for the poop; let the matting curve over the top. Sew 
 the prows together firmly, but the keel very loosely so that the 
 stitches hold the sides at least two inches apart along the bottom. 
 Lay a piece of brown cardboard across these stitches. Paste an 
 empty spool on this bottom, and in the spool insert a skewer 
 for a mast. A piece of yellowish paper, curved and mock-fluted, 
 may form the square sail. Blue crépe-paper will make an ideal 
 river, with twigs and pebbles for the banks. 
 
minmtetth 
 LAT ALI LS DD 
 
 b 
 
 “ When you travel by boat be prepared for a ducking.” 
 
 “One foot cannot stand in two boats.” 
 
 “When he cheats up to heaven in the price asked, you come 
 down to earth in the price you offer.” 
 
VI 
 
 PIRATE PIE AND THE-BOAT-WITH- 
 AN-EYE 
 
 - Tue Pacific Ocean does not last forever, of 
 course; and there came a day of hustle and bustle 
 on deck when everybody rushed to the railing 
 and, pointing rudely with forefingers, made what 
 is called in grammar a simple declarative sen- 
 tence: “J see land!” You would have supposed 
 that they had made it, or at least discovered it 
 quite by themselves, a la Mr. Marco Polo; instead 
 of which the captain knew it by heart and had 
 known it for years and years—knew the way the 
 yellow-brown water of the Yangtze came into the 
 blue ocean, knew the picturesque old junks with 
 square brown sails patched in many colors, knew 
 the quaint sampans full of yellow-faced families 
 who thought it worth their while to play tag be- 
 side the monster boat hoping some one on the 
 deck would throw down pennies. For some one 
 always did! How could you resist that toothless 
 old creature who held up her pole with a net on 
 the end as she croaked in a perpetual torrent: 
 
 [75] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 “ Hello, money! Hello, money! Hello, money! 
 Hello, money! ” 
 
 “ Like a coffee-mill! ” sighed Cynthia. 
 
 “ Or acracked Victrola record which some one 
 forgets to shut off!” the Plain Gray Lady said 
 sadly, for the old woman was much too old to be 
 out in a leaky boat all day long. 
 
 Cynthia had never felt so thrilled. It is true 
 that she had known from the beginning about 
 coming to China; but there is land that you come 
 to—and leave; and land that you come to—and 
 keep. And of course it made all the difference 
 in the world! 
 
 Later on, when she stood on dry land, she felt 
 less as if she owned China like a possession in her 
 coat-pocket. “I’m beginning to feel insignificant 
 all over again. For this is a real city, and a real 
 hotel, and a real trolley-car, and a real telegraph 
 office across the street. This isn’t a heathen 
 country!” 
 
 “Isn’t it?’ smiled the Plain Gray Lady. 
 “And yet I remember hearing of a dying man 
 who fell down on the street from sheer weakness 
 one day while a voice yelled from a window above 
 him: ‘Get up! You are not allowed to die oppo- 
 site the Telegraph Office, as it is a government 
 
 [ 76 ] 
 
PIRATE PIE AND THE-BOAT-WITH-AN-EYE 
 
 building!’ That’s because the person on whose 
 doorstep a man dies is obliged to buy the coffin! ” 
 
 “Dear me!” Cynthia exclaimed. “ Perhaps 
 it is a heathen country after all.” 
 
 “ Especially heathen out where I live,” boasted 
 the little missionary in mock pride. ‘“ We’re too 
 awful out there! The only autos are men’s backs 
 and arms, the only lights are kerosene-lamps, and 
 as for telegrams $f 
 
 Cynthia squared her shoulders: “ You can’t 
 scare me, I shall love it. All my life I’ve wanted 
 to be a pioneer-grandmother sort of person, like 
 my own ancestors who went West in prairie 
 schooners and grappled with poverty and Injuns 
 and forest wildernesses. I know I look frivolous, 
 but I’ve worked up a lovely state of adventure- 
 someness down under my goldy hair and my 
 pinky cheeks.” 
 
 “You'll do!” smiled the older lady con- 
 tentedly; and they set out to buy matches and 
 canned goods and all the myriad things which 
 would be needed through the year. Cynthia was 
 fascinated by the shops, but shocked at the way 
 her Plain Gray Saint bargained with the polite 
 merchants who lauded their “ very-much hand- 
 some pots and pans ”’; “ Lady, I give you it—ata 
 
 [77] 
 
 
 

 
 A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 
 
 cheapness! One dollar! Take it home! It is 
 yours! ” only to have this little customer sniff dis- 
 dainfully: 
 
 “One dollar? Not worth it. Twenty cents, 
 perhaps.” 
 
 “ Alas, what pain to hear such sums, Excel- 
 lency. Sixty cents, then. Sixty cents.” 
 
 “No,” said the little saint firmly, “ twenty-five 
 cents.” 
 
 “Cannot do!” wailed the merchant. “Too 
 much empty stomachs under the rooftree. Must 
 fill with rice. Twenty-five cents, cannot do. 
 Forty, maybe? ” 
 
 “No,” said the lady, and walked out of the 
 shop with Cynthia trailing miserably behind, 
 worrying about those little empty stomachs. 
 Presently there was the clatter-patter of straw 
 sandals; the merchant had arrived, the pot held 
 out in his hands like a gift: “ Thirty cents?” he 
 smiled anxiously. 
 
 “Thirty cents,” agreed the lady, tucking it 
 under her arm. 
 
 Cynthia was amazed. ‘Were you both 
 Cragvien 
 
 “No, one of us was Chinese. They always 
 haggle over the price. It is quite the thing to do. 
 
 [78 ] 
 
PIRATE PIE AND THE-BOAT-WITH-AN-EYE 
 
 No one ever pays the first price asked. I knew all 
 along that I would get it for thirty cents, for 
 that’s the proper price, but I had to start lower 
 so that as he came down from a dollar I could 
 mount up to thirty cents. Otherwise he might 
 “lose face.’ And nothing is more unthinkable 
 than that. It means lose your dignity, really. 
 Of course I usually talk Chinese and can get bet- 
 ter bargains than when I speak English for the 
 benefit of a little green China Shepherdess.” 
 
 “Don’t mind me!” Cynthia begged, and 
 counted the days until they started off in the boat 
 which was to take them along their special river. 
 Many times Cynthia longed for extra eyes to see 
 the curious sights along the shore, and life grew 
 even more exciting when the day came to change 
 into a little house-boat with its raised afterdeck 
 and its bright blue eye painted on the bow. 
 
 “Why the eye? ” asked Cynthia. 
 
 “To see with, of course!” the Plain Gray 
 Lady explained. ‘“ You see, there’s a goddess of 
 sailors called Ma-Cu. With her two faithful at- 
 tendants, ‘ Thousand-Mile Eye’ and ‘ Favoring- 
 Wind Ear,’ she’s supposed to be ready for any 
 emergency, but it’s necessary for Thousand-Mile 
 Eye to see, so every devout sailor protects his 
 
 [79 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 boat with an eye on the bow. And almost any 
 day you can hear Favoring-Wind Ear appealed 
 to by encouraging little whistles if the sailors 
 need a breeze. Listen this very minute, my 
 dearly: 
 
 Cynthia listened to the sailors whistling for the 
 wind. “I’m in China!” she whispered to her- 
 self. “And it’s a very heathen place, but oh! 
 so beautiful! Look at those banks—like giant 
 patchwork quilts made up of little farms: there a 
 brown field, there a green, here a yellow field, and 
 there more greens.” 
 
 Inside the Boat With The Bright Blue Eye 
 was a most amusing little affair, as Cynthia 
 wrote home: 
 
 “BEST FAMILY ON EARTH: 
 
 “ It’s a nice little boat, even if it has got a black 
 and blue eye. It’s also got the funniest insides, 
 all divided up into things that look like comical 
 coal-bins; life on board is one continual obstacle 
 race, for we are forced to climb over the parti- 
 tions from bin to bin to reach our own pigeon- 
 holes. I think hard before I leave my small 
 corner, to be sure that I have everything I can 
 possibly need for hours to come. Even then I 
 
 [ 80 ] 
 
PIRATE PIE AND THE-BOAT-WITH-AN-EYE 
 
 often remember cherished possessions left too far 
 behind me. But this especially when pirates come 
 on board. 
 
 “Tt was a great mistake about the pirates. 
 Missionaries don’t generally have them. The 
 Plain Gray Lady insists that she has gone up and 
 down this river for twenty years and never once 
 been pirated. Never once! Bandits on land? 
 Oh, yes! Robbers in the front door? Yes, some- 
 times! Thieves in the back door? Mercy, yes! 
 But not a single pirate. I do bring out the best 
 in folks somehow; even pirates are less bashful. 
 You will want to hear details. 
 
 “ Well, it was sunset-time and I was quoting 
 silent poetry to myself on deck. I never saw a 
 sun so pink or a sky so peacocky with gorgeous 
 blues and golds and greens and oranges. More- 
 over the whole river was a broad band of gold- 
 and-scarlet ribbon, with the hilltops purple. So 
 many colors at once made it seem as if I had 
 fallen into an artists’ palette by mistake. Or 
 should I say like falling into a pirate, by mistake? 
 For all of a sudden there he was. And there I 
 was. 
 
 * Now the only Chinese I know so far is chop- 
 chop. It means ‘ quickly ’ and I learned it on the 
 
 [81 ] 
 

 
 A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 ocean from a missionary. Since it was the only 
 word I knew, I called it very clear and loud to 
 the peacocky sunset. One little fat pink cloud 
 split in half with amusement. I began to won- 
 der if chop-chop was another dialect from my 
 new one (which I haven’t learned yet). But 
 nevertheless I repeated it much louder than be- 
 fore, chop-chop! 
 
 “Then came that blessed American voice from 
 an inside bin calling: ‘ Is it some joke, dearest?’ 
 
 “*No, I think it’s a pirate! Chop-chop!’ I 
 shouted at the top of my lungs, wondering where 
 in the world all the stupid sailors could be. And 
 then, plump! down came a thud over my entire 
 face as the pirate laid his big flat palm from fore- 
 head to chin. I thought that he had certainly 
 ruined my dear little nose forever, but I did not 
 worry about such trifles for the pirate was tying 
 my hands behind me and laying me out flat on the 
 deck looking up at a little startled new moon. 
 
 “There wasn’t a sound from anybody for a 
 thousand years. Nota sailor whispered to Miss 
 Favoring-Wind Ear. Not a Plain Gray Lady 
 called from her bin. Just the Pirate and I, and 
 the moon, and the peacocky sky were left in the 
 world. I was very unhappy. So was the darling 
 
 [ 82] 
 
PIRATE PIE AND THE-BOAT-WITH-AN-EYE 
 
 new moon. He pulled a cloud over his face in 
 order not to feel so sorry for any little shep- 
 herdess who had to stop before she had even 
 begun. 
 
 “Presently the Pirate rolled me over with his 
 foot and tried to get my wrist-watch off. The 
 ribbon fits very snugly, as you know, and he could 
 not work it down over my wrist. Neither did he 
 understand how to unclasp it; and I being so re- 
 clined, was not inclined to help him. I felt so 
 flat! My hands were so backward! I know now 
 what the Chinese mean by ‘ losing face.’ 
 
 “ Well, a thousand more years passed by. The 
 pirate rolled me over again, and I was sorry to 
 see the peacock sky turning blue on top, and 
 darker. I began to feel a bit chilly. Little stars 
 came out and winked at me as if it were a huge 
 joke. I began thinking how thrilling it would all 
 be in the movies. I began wishing somebody 
 could see me—somebody with a lasso: William 5. 
 Hart or Tom Mix or ‘ Doug.’ Then IJ began 
 wishing for you; you would have been so startled 
 and frightened to see me, dear family! I think 
 it was about this time that I cried a little and 
 thought of Hudson Taylor. What would he have 
 done? Pray, of course. Sol prayed, too. But I 
 
 [ 83 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 wondered how I could possibly be saved on that 
 lonely river 
 
 “ Just then Pirate Number Two loomed on the 
 scene. He had a disk in his hand. He was 
 smacking his lips in the most cat-that-swallowed- 
 the-canary-fashion. His lips were simply drip- 
 ping; the way he licked them was awful. 
 
 “My own Pirate leaned over and snapped off 
 part of the disk greedily. He smacked his lips 
 noisily, also, and something juicy red ran down 
 his chin, falling plop! on my cheek. 
 
 “Look out there! You'll spot my dress!’ I 
 warned him. And then the dreadful absurdity 
 of it struck me: this was no picnic supper, these 
 were pirates. This wasn’t play-acting, this was 
 a desperate occasion. Maybe I wouldn’t be need- 
 ing any dress tomorrow—oh, what an end to a 
 new China Shepherdess! And then of course I 
 started to cry; but would you believe it, dear 
 family, I immediately started to laugh. 
 
 “For imagine it, I had been bossing pirates! 
 I! All to save my third-best jersey dress—I 
 laughed and laughed and laughed. Although 
 down underneath the dress I wasn’t at all amused 
 over it. 
 
 “ But the Pirates were. They stopped eating 
 
 [ 84 ] 
 
 
 
PIRATE PIE AND THE-BOAT-WITH-AN-EYE 
 
 Pirate Pie and looked down at me suspiciously 
 and then approvingly. They said something ex- 
 ceedingly Chinese to each other. They gave a 
 slow smile. Then my special Pirate stooped over 
 and stuffed a chunk of Pirate Pie between my 
 lips. I almost choked on it until I found that it 
 was—yes, actually, it was one of the pies the 
 Presbyterian missionary had yiven us on the 
 little river steamer. She had been making a half- 
 day’s trip up-river to see her married daughter, 
 and she had said a pie might add a little tang to 
 our monotonous river diet! It certainly had! I 
 chewed it as best I could, and the Pirates seemed 
 amused to see the juiciness roll down my chin. 
 “And then, just as the moon and the stars 
 were beginning to be all the light there was, a 
 strange thing happened. Music! The Pirates 
 jumped at least a foot high: ‘What dreadful 
 magic is this?’ they seemed to be asking. You 
 never heard music so very saucy and carefree: 
 
 Yes, we have no bananas, 
 We have no bananas today. 
 
 You know the way it sounds at home in Amer- 
 ica? Well, all I’ve got to say is that it sounds 
 even more soin China. Onariver! At night! 
 
 [85 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 “The Pirates were evidently frightened stiff. 
 When they finally dared to move they put their 
 heads together and whispered frantically. Then 
 I had an inspiration: ‘ Chop-chop!’ I yelled. 
 
 “They took the hint! They took it by diving 
 over the side of this haunted boat so very chop- 
 chop that the whole ark almost tipped over. I 
 could hear them splashing as they swam away. I 
 wanted to cry with relief, but how could I when 
 that silliest song ever invented was still bawling 
 about bananas—bananas—bananas. 
 
 “T tried very hard to squirm out of my band- 
 ages, I rolled east and west in order to loosen 
 them, and suddenly I seemed to roll right on top 
 of a voice at my very ear whispering, “ Where 
 are they?’ 
 
 “My blood ran cold once more, for it was such - 
 a ghostly little disembodied affair, coming from 
 nobody in particular. But then of course I real- 
 ized that it was somebody very particular. “Is 
 it you, little Plain Gray Lady?’ I whispered back. 
 
 ““* Who else in the crew speaks English?’ she 
 said. ‘ Where are those men?’ 
 
 “*T think they’re gone elsewhere to shop for 
 bananas. Could you please untie my hands for 
 me? Or else help me to get up on my feet. And 
 
 [ 86 ] 
 
PIRATE PIE AND THE-BOAT-WITH-AN-EYE 
 
 what happened to you? And where in the world 
 are the crew?’ 
 
 “ Ah, yes, the crew! You never in your life 
 saw men tied round and round with so many 
 ropes. The most whistling of all our sailors had 
 a broken ankle from the rough treatment. I wish 
 you could have seen my Plain Gray Wonder set it. 
 
 “Are you a doctor?’ I asked, as she seemed 
 to click a bone into place and bind her splints 
 (two wooden ladles!) like a veteran. 
 
 “Mercy no!’ she cried. ‘ But of course in 
 twenty years in a walled town without a doctor 
 I’ve had to pick up a lot of practical first aid.’ 
 
 “* Such as starting up a Victrola to be “ rough 
 on pirates ” so that they will die outdoors. It was 
 too delicious! How did you happen to think of it?’ 
 
 “* Well, I prayed. At first it seemed all I 
 could do, I was so tightly tied. Then I managed 
 to use my hands, fortunately they were tied in 
 front of me which was a great help, but my ankles 
 were lashed together so that I could not possibly 
 climb a partition to reach you. I never was so 
 anxious. And then the thought of music came 
 like an inspiration. Sunset-time is a superstitious 
 moment to most of these ignorant Chinese, and 
 my little Victrola’s tone of voice is like nothing 
 
 [ 87 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 human, since its drenching the other day. I 
 imagine the poor men thought they had fallen 
 into a nest of evil spirits. You will notice that 
 they left all their bundles of booty behind them. 
 God has been very good to us, my dear.’ 
 
 “T took her in my arms. My own little Plain 
 Gray Heroine! ‘Tell me the verse you like 
 best?’ I asked. 
 
 “*Lo, I am with you always, even to the end 
 of the world,’ she quoted quietly. ‘ You know, 
 Cynthia, it’s written specially for persons like 
 ourselves, because it’s the latter half of a grand 
 sentence. The first half tells us to go into all the 
 world, so if I keep my half of it the Saviour keeps 
 his half; and I’m really the safest woman in 
 China!’ 
 
 “So now you know, belovedests, that I’m liv- 
 ing with A Friend of God; an Unafraid Mortal. 
 I wouldn’t have missed the Pirates for anything, 
 although I am glad that we leave the blue-eyed 
 boat tomorrow for a short overland trip in sedan- 
 chairs. 
 
 “Aren’t Ia thrilling sister, Bobbie? And you 
 dear little sisters? 
 
 * Your own devoted 
 §'CyNG 
 
 [ 88 ] 
 

 
 You will see how easily a sedan-chair can be made from a 
 square box with two windows cut in each side and an entrance 
 opening in front, meat skewers or knitting-needles or twigs for 
 the handles. The bearers may be duplicates of the pedler drawn 
 -in Chapter XVIII. 
 
 A novel string of firecrackers can be made with little squares 
 of bright red paper. Write on each something about the Chinese © 
 language—e. g. what a roof with a pig under it represents; or, 
 a woman under a broom; or, that ma means cat; ma means 
 grandmother, etc; or, that to learn Chinese takes lungs of steel, 
 patience of Job, etc. Thread a needle with heavy white thread; 
 roll each red paper into a scroll, firecracker size, and sew the 
 raw edge of the paper to the scroll with one big invisible stitch, 
 the knot showing at one end of the firecracker and the loose end 
 of the thread forming the fuse at the other end. “ Explode” 
 these by pulling them open and reading aloud how poor Cynthia 
 poll-parroted Chinese. 
 
mim rite tM 
 
 “ A gem is not polished without rubbing nor a man perfected 
 without trials.” 
 
 “To see it once is better than to read about it a thousand 
 times.” 
 
 “ When heaven rears a man he grows very fat; when men rear 
 one he is but skin and bones.” 
 
Vil 
 POLLY WANT A CRACKER? 
 
 - No, Polly decidedly did not want a cracker! 
 She clapped her hands over her dear little pink 
 ears, shut her violet-gray eyes, and screwed up 
 her forehead into a regular bow-knot of terror; 
 all of which shows you what a very green Polly 
 she was. For of course nothing is so polite in 
 _ China as to “say it with firecrackers,” and it 
 was the most natural thing in the world on the 
 day when the Plain Gray Lady came back to town 
 for many of the population to turn out to meet 
 her sedan-chair and make a glorious racket. For 
 this, that was lost, was found! This, that had 
 gone over the ocean, had come back again! 
 There were no firecrackers too big or too noisy 
 to say “ Welcome to our city.” 
 
 “This must be the Fourth of July!” thought 
 the poor unimportant Polly as her sedan-chair 
 followed second in the procession. But of course 
 she remembered at once that not only was the 
 date not July, but also there was no especial rea- 
 son why the Chinese should celebrate American 
 
 [91 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 Independence Day. Therefore this must be in 
 honor of the little lady in the front chair, for the 
 farther the procession traveled the noisier the 
 people, until finally as the chair-bearers set down 
 their burdens before a certain gateway the racket 
 became truly terrific. 
 
 The Plain Gray Lady stepped out of her chair. 
 More firecrackers! Polly stepped out of her 
 chair! Other firecrackers! Her hands flew up 
 to cover her ears. 
 
 “ You went away one, and you come back two,” 
 some one called to the Plain Gray Lady pointing 
 to Polly. “Is this outside-country person going 
 to stay?” 
 
 “Yes, she will stay,” smiled the little lady, con- 
 tentedly hooking her arm through Cynthia’s— 
 for I think you have probably guessed who 
 “Polly ” was. Although you can hardly know 
 why she earned her fourth nickname; but Polly 
 knew only too well. As she wrote to her family: 
 
 “ My Own HomeE-SwEEtT-HoMeE Fo.Lks: 
 
 “Tam nothing these days but the greenest of 
 green poll-parrots. Somebody says a word to 
 me, and I say it back at them. Over and over and 
 over until I’m dizzy with the sound! And it 
 
 [92 ] 
 
POLLY WANT A CRACKER? 
 
 matters how I say it. It matters awfully! If I 
 say Moung with an upward inflection it means 
 the verb ‘ to ask,’ if I say Moung emphatically, it 
 means “ door.’ And would you believe it? but a 
 man on the steamer told me that the little two- 
 letter Ma has exactly seven meanings according 
 to the way you intone it. Seven, just fancy! It 
 can mean cat,’ ‘ horse,’ © goat,’ ‘ grandmother,’ 
 ‘cannot,’ ‘ scold,’ or ‘oatmeal.’ It just depends 
 how you say it! But isn’t it simply horrible to 
 feel that at any moment I might forget and call 
 a grandmother a goat, or, at best, a cat, unless I 
 can bear in mind that granny must have a low 
 tone while pussy needs a high one as if I were 
 about to pick a quarrel. 
 
 * My beloved Plain Gray Lady has gotten mea 
 suitable teacher, the gentlest, meekest man in 
 China I am sure; he shakes his own hands when 
 he comes into the room and bows so politely at 
 every remark he makes that we both resemble 
 rocking-horses. He thanks me when I do well 
 and begs my pardon when I make a mistake. 
 Needless to say he is always asking it! 
 
 “ The spoken language, you far-away dears, is 
 one thing, a mountain of a task; but the written 
 language, alas! is a whole mountain range; for 
 
 [93 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 it has no regular alphabet but is made up of pic- 
 ture symbols called ‘characters’ which repre- 
 sent words. For instance, peace has the com- 
 pound character of woman and roof: the woman 
 under a roof. My Plain Gray Darling tells me 
 with twinkles in her anything-but-plain-gray eyes 
 that the Chinese think there is no peace if the 
 lady isn’t kept indoors! 
 
 “Good is represented by the characte of a 
 woman and son, since the gods bless every good 
 Chinese mother with a-boy. 
 
 “Quarrel, alas! alas! is represented by the 
 character for two women, undoubtedly because— 
 like those in the U. S. A.—their tongues are 
 prone to pick one! 
 
 “ Home is represented by a pig under a roof, 
 because a pig is a valuable critter with right of 
 way. 
 
 “Wife is represented by the character for 
 ‘woman’ standing under ‘broom.’ My Plain 
 Gray Lady tells me sadly that not only must the 
 Chinese daughter-in-law sweep clean and sweep 
 often, but if she does her duty badly the broom 
 comes down bang! on her poor little back. 
 
 “Says my teacher to me: ‘When you have 
 heart to the left and blood to the right, the char- 
 
 [ 94 ] 
 
POLLY WANT A CRACKER? 
 
 acter means to pity; but when you have heart on 
 one side and star on the other it means to wake 
 up. When there is hand on one side and foot on 
 the other, it means to take hold. When water is 
 on one side and stand up is on the other, the char- 
 acter means to cry. When grass is on top and 
 name is down below, it means tea. Have you 
 honorably got it?’ 
 
 “Multiply all this picture language by five 
 thousand and all the spoken language by another 
 five thousand (for that is the very fewest one can 
 live on!) and you will understand why Mr. Milne 
 said to Robert Morrison: ‘ To learn Chinese is a 
 work for men with bodies of brass, lung's of steel, 
 heads of oak, and eyes of eagles, hearts of apos- 
 tles, memories of angels, the patience of Job, and 
 the years of Methusaleh.’ 
 
 “ Knowing your Cynthia as you do, the ques- 
 tion is, Do I qualify? I’m wondering seriously! 
 In any case I’m nothing but a green poll-parrot 
 all day long, imitating my meek little teacher. I 
 eat, poll-parrot, and go to bed. I even poll-parrot 
 abominably in my sleep. Then I get up, eat, poll- 
 parrot, and tumble wearily into bed again. I feel 
 paralyzed sometimes to think of the conversa- 
 tional breaks I may make all my life, just as regu- 
 
 [95 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 lar poll-parrots often do when they squawk 
 ‘Thief!’ at the preacher and ‘ Kiss me, darling!’ 
 to the plumber. 
 
 “T haven’t told you a thing about the Plain 
 Gray Lady’s house. I shall never forget my first 
 impression of it as arm-in-arm she led me into 
 it with firecrackers to right of us, firecrackers to 
 left of us volleying and thundering. ‘ Nobly we 
 walked and well’ right through a front door like 
 anybody’s front door, into a hall like anybody’s 
 hall, into a small plain parlor like anybody’s par- 
 lor. It was just every-day America planted right 
 here in the heart of China. But my little Plain 
 Gray Lady is by no means one of the anybodies 
 or the everybodies! She’s Somebody! Lovelier 
 and sweeter and frailer and gray-eyed-er than I 
 had supposed. 
 
 ““She’s made this place too dear. Flowers? 
 Oh, my! Everywhere. If she sticks an umbrella 
 in the ground it roots, grows up, and blooms. 
 Think of me, my own self—the most parasol of 
 mortals outwardly, yet she’s planted me already, 
 and every day I keep pulling myself up to see how 
 I’m taking root. My very first day she said to 
 me: ‘ Now while your teacher is an excellent man, 
 he is not a Christian. Don’t forget for a moment 
 
 [ 96 ] 
 

 
 POLLY WANT A CRACKER? 
 
 that while you are imitating his Chinese it will 
 be a remarkable chance for him to begin imitat- 
 ing your Christianity.’ 
 
 “It has given me my one bright spot in lan- 
 guage work, I assure you. And one day when I 
 said I feared I would not be much use when 
 school opens she said in her calm little fashion: ‘ I 
 thought maybe you could sit in your room, dear- 
 est, just at certain hours. It could be a prayer- 
 room where the girls could come if they wanted 
 to. Forthey docome! I’ve always had my room 
 _a place like that where I sat calmly at certain 
 times each day, but of course I have had to steal 
 those hours from other duties. It will be the 
 greatest blessing to have you take this over! A 
 little Christian weather-breeder, dear, a Chris- 
 tian atmosphere-maker.’ 
 
 “Did you ever know such a refreshing crea- 
 ture? She seems to wash the face of every morn- 
 ing for me, so that I start afresh. 
 
 “Oh dear!’ I wail, like Mr. Shakespeare’s 
 funny little schoolboy who crept like a snail un- 
 willingly to school, ‘ now I’ve got to go and poll- 
 parrot all morning.’ 
 
 “* What of it?’ she cries. ‘Think how soon 
 you'll be skylarking all over town.’ 
 
 [97 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 “Yesterday we went to see an old lady living 
 in a mud-puddle. The puddle was a mistake! 
 For there had been heavy rains, and the river had 
 come indoors from one side while the brook had 
 come in from another, and the very heavens had 
 come in through the leaky roof. The old lady 
 was very grumbly and mumbly and helpless. She 
 scolded everybody in sight. She scolded me, and 
 I think she even scolded my little Plain Gray 
 Lady. It certainly sounded like scolding. But 
 my Plain Gray One beamed on her, and lo! the 
 warmth of that smile began drying up the pud- 
 dles. Really! 
 
 “For quite energetically she moved the old 
 lady’s chair out of the puddles, she showed Mrs. 
 Lazy Daughter-in-law how to dig a clever ditch 
 so that the puddles could be persuaded to run out- 
 doors in channels. After a half-hour of irriga- 
 tion enterprises life seemed more bearable for the 
 old lady, whereupon presents from America were 
 presented to the entire family. You should have 
 seen their faces as they untied the strings and 
 held up—well, what were the things anyhow? It 
 was plain to be seen that nobody knew. They 
 giggled a little, like children on Christmas morn- 
 ing when the suspense is thickest. 
 
 [98 ] 
 
POLLY WANT A CRACKER? 
 
 “Then the Plain Gray Lady demonstrated 
 what handkerchiefs are for. The whole family 
 took to nosewiping. One small boy had such a 
 little button of a nose that I feared it would be 
 wiped entirely away. But it emerged very, very 
 pink and shining, his little slant eyes actually 
 crossing as he tried in vain to see the pink button 
 —before and after. The most flattering remarks 
 were delivered to the donor by all parties con- 
 cerned. Bowing in a polite row they begged us 
 to ‘Go slowly! Go slowly!’ when we took our 
 departure. 
 
 “* And now I shan’t mind going there quite so 
 much,’ said my Plain Gray Saint, cheerfully. 
 ‘You see, it’s far pleasanter when people have 
 handkerchiefs. But that family has been much 
 too poor for such extravagances. They have had 
 too much trouble in their house lately to think of 
 indulging themselves.’ 
 
 “*FHfouse?’ I asked. ‘That isn’t a house, 
 that’s a shanty! Think of the mud—think of 
 those pecking chickens—those yapping dogs—no 
 windows, just leaks in the roof. Why do they 
 plant their house right where the brook and the 
 river meet, anyhow?’ 
 
 “* Feng Shui, she answered. 
 
 [99 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 66 
 
 ‘T haven’t poll-parroted those words into my 
 memory yet, darling lady, have I?’ 
 
 “*Probably not! The combination means 
 “wind-water,” or really the Science of Luck. 
 It’s such a delicate science that China is full of 
 special luck doctors to tell you on what day Feng 
 Shui will give you good fortune in marrying, in 
 buying, in selling, in having a funeral. Every- 
 body has his or her special Feng Shui, so that it 
 would be a cruel neighbor who would move a 
 pebble from the front yard or break a twig on the 
 property—Feng Shui might be disturbed! And 
 sometimes a neighbor’s chimney spoils the luck 
 of the family next door. The family we just 
 visited used to live next door to my school. But 
 the Christian singing spoiled their luck. We had 
 really terrible arguments over it. They pasted 
 charm-papers all around their premises. They 
 put a little tin policeman on their roof to shoot 
 the evil spirits, but I was too much for them. 
 They had to leave! And Feng Shui has treated 
 them no better in their new home than before. 
 That’s what the old lady was scolding me about— 
 that little boy’s father and mother both died while 
 I was away last year; she says the spirits of the 
 new location are against the whole family. 
 
 [ 100 } 
 
POLLY WANT A CRACKER? 
 
 “Look at these mud-puddles, for instance? ”’ she 
 said.’ 
 
 “T said for the hundredth time, ‘ This is 
 China!’ adding, ‘Is there a reason why all the 
 roofs tip up at the corners?’ 
 
 “* There is! For the lower air is full of evil 
 spirits. These spirits are stupid little things, 
 they can only travel in straight lines-—that’s the 
 reason for our crooked streets and crooked lanes. 
 It’s also the reason why no two doors in a Chinese 
 house are ever opposite each other, for woe betide 
 the person passing between if an evil spirit was 
 en route from door to door! He would be in- 
 stantly sick, or instantly have bad luck in busi- 
 ness. So there’s a special devil screen before 
 each heathen front door in town. And a fasci- 
 nating curved roof is really a spiritual shoot-the- 
 chute, for if an evil spirit comes dashing down 
 to enter the courtyard, zip! he strikes that up- 
 turned cornice and is bounced off into the upper 
 air.’ 
 
 “You safe American youngsters, isn’t this a 
 shame? A perfect shame? I remembered how 
 that our Handkerchief Family had pieces of 
 paper pasted on the outside of their chimney; 
 were they charms, too? I asked. 
 
 [101 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 ““ Ves; little sign-posts, as it were, warning 
 the evil spirits away. Indoors they had the char- 
 acter for tiger painted on the chimney, for the 
 mere mention of tigers gives demons a panic.’ 
 
 “ By this time we had come to the little hill just 
 outside the gates and were looking down on the 
 roofs of the walled city—tiled in blue-gray, blue- 
 green, or red, or thatched, each with the inevi- 
 table slant upward. 
 
 “ “And only one story high, you notice,’ the 
 Plain Gray Lady explained, ‘ for it is only Chris- 
 tianity which adds a second story to a man’s 
 house. I think that’s true all over the world. 
 And it’s only Christianity that gives you and me 
 the choice of being old maids, my dear! Sucha 
 creature is unheard of in heathen communities. 
 And wide streets are another Christian boon. 
 Look how near together the roofs of those houses 
 are!’ 
 
 «Some day,’ I laughed, ‘I think that I will 
 try walking all over town on the rooftops! ’ 
 
 “*Please don’t, Poll-Parrot!’ groaned my 
 older missionary. ‘Let me warn you that you 
 are enough of an astonishment now. Didn’t you 
 notice this afternoon how some of the children 
 scampered away as we came nearer? ‘That’s 
 
 [ 102 ] 
 
POLLY WANT A CRACKER? 
 
 partly your hair but mostly the smelling-salt 
 demons corked in that bottle of yours.’ 
 
 “T flourished said bottle regretfully: ‘If I 
 could only leave my nose at home! But I find the 
 open sewers of your city very deadly, madam, 
 not to mention little piles of garbage standing 
 here and there. As for your million flies, I feel 
 as if I were playing our old party game of Buzz. 
 Mercy on us, just look at those cats in the tree!’ 
 
 “My dears, they were the deadest of dead 
 pussies, tied up there with a piece of yellow 
 _charm-paper to ward off the cat demons! So 
 now you know why I keep saying to myself a 
 dozen times a day, ‘I am in China!’ Perhaps 
 you are beginning to understand why I must 
 learn Chinese chop-chop, for our school opens in 
 a few months, and I.want to be 
 
 “Your loving 
 
 ‘ CHINESE CHATTER-Box.” 
 
 [ 103 ] 
 

 

 
 For the family of Amazing Grace you will need three or four 
 of the Chinese women and as many Chinese men, also plenty of 
 children in smaller sizes made from the patterns given in Chap- 
 ters IX and X. Stand all these dolls in a brave row facing a 
 Boxer captain, one of the men dolls with a yellow girdle and 
 yellow turban. (Yellow being the Manchu and also the Buddhist 
 color, was adopted as the Boxer sign of leadership.) A chalk 
 cross is drawn on the floor, but one by one, beginning with 
 grandfather and ending with the baby, the members of the family 
 refuse to trample on the cross and are stabbed by the Boxer’s 
 sword. 
 
 Each doll should be cut from two thicknesses of colored card- 
 board; blue, purple, green, etc. Paste together the two heads 
 and shoulders nearly to the waist, then spread the feet apart 
 so that the figure may stand alone. Be sure to cut the soles of the 
 feet flat, as indicated, otherwise the dolls cannot stand steadily. 
 It is lots of fun to experiment with the face—four dashes, a dot, 
 and an o will make eyes, nose, and mouth. Just practise in your 
 spare moments. These are the dolls to use for other stories, too— 
 when you want a Granny, or a mother, or a Deacon Ding. 
 
mui prize rt 
 MAA TAS 
 
 “Tf a man at home receives no visitors, when abroad he will 
 have no host.” 
 
 “Let every one sweep away the snow from his own door and 
 not meddle with the hoar frost on his neighbor’s tiles.” 
 
 “Marble is not less hard or less cold for being polished.” 
 
VIII 
 iibe BES lh SELEERSINE AY GELLAR 
 
 “ Topay,” said the China Shepherdess, “ I’d 
 like to see the thrillingest, thankfullest place in 
 town. You've shown me all the heathen spots, 
 so could I please have a thriller? Of course I 
 don’t want to get into actual danger, or get tan- 
 gled up in the red tape of international diplo- 
 macy Af 
 
 “Exactly!” the Plain Gray Lady said soberly. 
 “T think I will prescribe Amazing Grace. She’s 
 in the next room.” 
 
 Cynthia tiptoed to the door and took a good 
 look. “ What a quaint little blue-cotton person! 
 I feel better already.. But can she speak 
 English? ” 
 
 Amazing Grace simply beamed and beamed. 
 “English are such a one un-easy talk to speak! ” 
 she answered. “ Cannot do! But I do make a 
 thank for you being in our school!” She bowed 
 politely. 
 
 The Plain Gray Lady stated Cynthia’s burning 
 desire for a thrill—for something unusual. 
 
 [ 107 ] 
 
 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 “‘ She make a urge for seeing the what-nobody- 
 else-sees? Well now, should it be somethings for 
 the honorably self to buy, or just somethings to 
 making the eyes fluttering, or perhaps some- 
 things to make merry the worshipful heart?” 
 Amazing Grace knew human nature. 
 
 Cynthia wanted to hug the little guide. “ All 
 three, please! Couldn’t my eyes flutter while my 
 heart makes merry?” 
 
 “Can do!” beamed Amazing Grace. “It are 
 just come into my head. Make a steppings after 
 me, so you pleases.” 
 
 They began a zigzag walk down crooked 
 streets and narrow lanes; long gaudy shop signs 
 flapped overhead, and wheelbarrows, sedan- 
 chairs, and all sorts of pedlers jostled them at 
 every step. Barbers were cutting their custom- 
 ers’ hair right out in the street, bakers were bak- 
 ing little cakes in portable ovens while you waited. 
 Cynthia had a dozen curious sights to see, when 
 suddenly Amazing Grace turned off into a 
 gloomy muddy lane and entered a dark shadowy 
 doorway. If Cynthia felt afraid to follow she 
 did not care to show it, for Amazing Grace was 
 dusting off a chair in the most matter-of-fact 
 way and begging her to “ honorably sit.” 
 
 [ 108 ] 
 
THE BEST SELLER IN A CELLAR 
 
 For a dramatic moment she stared at her 
 guest; then she began: “ You do please got to 
 listen a story,” she begged, “a story of the family 
 who are once lived in this here house. So big a 
 family as you could not count on my two hands, 
 with grandfather and uncles and childrens, nice 
 little laughing childrens what are full of happy 
 all days. You could to see them in this room as 
 the honorably old man are prop his big horn 
 glasses on his honorably nose and are make read- 
 ings from the Christian Book of God. That was 
 why they are got full of happy—see? ” 
 
 Cynthia nodded. 
 
 “Well, came a day. Celestial sun shining over 
 the roof; grandmother sitting by the fireplace 
 full of peace; mother cooking rice in the pot; little 
 children full of happy; Da Ngen sweeping floor 
 in the Christian’s way. Then tramp! tramp! 
 tramp! came marchings in the street. ‘Ah me!’ 
 sighed that mother, and are calling the childrens 
 into her arms in fear. She are know what is. 
 Then bang! bang came knockings on the door. 
 ‘Let us in!’ sounded yells without.” 
 
 Amazing Grace moved to the door, swung it 
 open dramatically and said: “‘ Honorably step! ” 
 Cynthia had the uncanny feeling that shadowy 
 
 [ 109 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 people were really stepping inside—people with 
 an evil purpose. Then shutting the door, Amaz- 
 ing Grace continued: 
 
 “Five mens are step inside. Mens by the 
 name of Boxers, and they are scowl with great 
 fierceness all times. Then the captain are draw 
 his sharp sword from the belt around him and are 
 shout loud: ‘Speak up—are anybody in this 
 house Christians?’ Well, the honorably grand- 
 mother stand up to bow and say with proudness, 
 ‘Weare all that.” Then quicker than flashes the 
 Boxer captain are wave his big sword: ‘ Stand in 
 arow!’ heare shouting. So the family are stand 
 in a row—honorably grandfather at one end, 
 plump baby to the other end.” 
 
 Amazing Grace showed the very spots where 
 they had stood until Cynthia seemed to see every 
 one of them: the dear old grandfather peering 
 through the horn glasses propped on his nose, the 
 trembling grandmother wondering what was the 
 matter, the frightened uncles and aunts sum- 
 moned from other rooms, the astonished chil- 
 dren, the unconcerned baby, plump as a pin- 
 cushion, in his padded jackets. Then with 
 another dramatic swerve Amazing Grace pre- 
 tended to be the Boxer captain. Leaning over, 
 
 [110] 
 

 
 THE BEST SELLER IN A CELLAR 
 
 
 
 she drew the sign of the cross on the earthen floor 
 with her finger. 
 
 “ Fe are draw the cross this way with his glit- 
 tering sword, and on it he are put the dear, dear 
 Bible. Then he sneer: ‘Step on it, you Chris- 
 tians, and I are saving your lives for you. Come 
 on, stamp on it good and heavy, one by one!’ 
 But no, the honorably grandfather, he are not 
 make that steppings. As for the feeble grand- 
 mother, no, no, not to save her poor white hairs 
 would she put stampings on the dear Saviour’s 
 Bible. And the uncles all shook their heads, no; 
 also the aunts—no, no! Not on that honorably 
 sign of the cross nor on that so precious Book. 
 Then it are the turn of the little bits of children, 
 so full of happy ten minutes ago, so full of scare 
 now because of glittering swords. But no, they 
 are not make any stampings on their onliest 
 story-book; not the boys; not the girls. And not 
 that littlest bit of plump baby either—he wobble 
 his surprised little head. ‘No, no!’ he babble, 
 just like every one else, although he are got no 
 idea what it are all about.” 
 
 Cynthia held her breath, and her heart beat 
 painfully fast. “Oh!” she cried brokenly, 
 “ surely—surely that dreadful Boxer didn’t dare 
 
 [111] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 to kill them? Oh, Amazing Grace, not all of 
 them? ” 
 
 Amazing Grace nodded silently. “ Mostly all,” 
 she said in a smothered voice, “‘ but there are 
 great confusion arose. So many in the family, 
 and only five Boxers, so Da Ngen are by the door 
 and are slip through, snatching three of the little 
 bits of childrens with her. Which are the way 
 she did not see the awfulness, for there are queer 
 cellar under this house, where grandfather mer- 
 chant used for to hide his mostly precious mer- 
 chandise. Only a big hole in the earth, but there 
 Da Negen hide with the poor childrens. How 
 shall I told it? How her heart was sore with 
 heavy inside her; how all day she are crouch with 
 the childrens inside her arm. Then when night 
 came she are creep out to get foods—ah! I can- 
 not speak what she saw.” 
 
 Cynthia began crying as if her heart would 
 break. “ Right in this very room?” she sobbed. 
 
 “Yes,” answered Amazing Grace softly. 
 “ But you are not rightly to cry, Miss Honorably 
 Stranger, this are to put a thankful in your heart 
 to know how the Lord God are got Chinese who 
 love him so hard they are willingly to die with 
 pains. There is only proudness for that family, 
 
 [112] 
 
THE BEST SELLER IN A CELLAR 
 
 when I tell you the beautiful endings. For Da 
 Ngen are found the Bible in the ashes of the fire- 
 place, so she are taking it down into the cellar 
 and are hidden it safe. Boxers come snooping, 
 but are got no sight of nobodies. One, two, three 
 days pass, then Da Ngen venture out to get foods 
 for empty stomachs; four, five, six more days, 
 out again for more foods. And so on, weeks on 
 end. Then danger are over, and neighbors are 
 make discover of starving childrens. Surprises 
 are no word for them. My! My!” 
 
 Cynthia broke in impatiently, “Then what 
 happened? ” 
 
 Amazing Grace said beseechingly: “ I like you 
 should understand properly how Da Ngen are 
 earn money for feedings those childrens. This 
 way: those heathen neighbors are full of curious. 
 They wags their polite heads but cannot under- 
 stood how Christians will die instead of stamp- 
 ings on Bible. So they do got desires for touch- 
 ing that Book with their curious hands and for 
 reading it with curious eyes. Well, Da Ngen she 
 do charge so many bits of cash for climbing down 
 in cellar to reading her Bible saved from ashes. 
 Are it give you a painfully shock? ” 
 
 “No, no! ” cried Cynthia, her eyes shining, “ I 
 
 [113 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 think she was the pluckiest girl I ever heard of 
 to manage to save those children and feed them. 
 Where is she now, bless her heart? ” 
 
 Amazing Grace squinted shyly at Cynthia. 
 “Why, she are me!” she said bashfully, “Da 
 Ngen are my Christian name, which means Big 
 Grace, or Amazing Grace, as the Miss Heavenly 
 Teacher call me, when it are done over into 
 American talk. As for the childrens, the brother 
 are being minister in town, the sister married, 
 while the little bit baby are all growed up into nice 
 school-teacher. For those Boxers did come many 
 year ago, what you call 1900, yes? ” 
 
 Cynthia looked in astonishment at Amazing 
 Grace. “ You’re too little and frail and young 
 to have lived through such terrors, my dear. 
 What do you do now? ” 
 
 “There aren’t nothings to tell, I are just the 
 same me. I help at the school. But I do got fine 
 husband, who are selling Bibles every day. For 
 ever since those Boxers, the Chinese are got a big 
 curious for to own the Book what could make ten 
 thousand men and women into brave martyrs. 
 My husband, he are selling and selling and sell- 
 ing that Bible all up and down the country. 
 There are no book like it, it are the best seller 
 
 [114] 
 
THE BEST SELLER IN A CELLAR 
 
 over everything else. But for me, I are liking 
 best the Bible in the cellar. Will you honorably 
 step to see it?” 
 
 As in a dream Cynthia followed Amazing 
 Grace down into the dark, damp hole in the 
 earthen floor. Their only light was a thread of 
 flickering flame from a little taper, but it was 
 enough for her to see the book which Amazing 
 Grace thrust into her hands—a little ugly warped 
 Bible, burned and tattered at the edges, its cover 
 loose, many of its pages gone. But she looked at 
 it passionately, then very reverently she clasped 
 it against her heart. 
 
 Afterward, alone in her room, she wrote out 
 the story to send home to her family in time for 
 Thanksgiving Day: “ For I think you'll like to 
 hear about the thankfullest place I’ve ever seen 
 on earth, and perhaps when you are returning 
 thanks for Pilgrims and turkeys and cranberry 
 sauce you will open your Bibles at Daniel I1 : 32 
 and thank God all over again that even here in 
 China ‘ The people who do know their God shall 
 be strong and do exploits. ” 
 
 [115] 
 

 
TO THE PLAIN GRAY LADY 
 
 Mary, Mary, Missionary, 
 How does your garden grow? 
 
 With reading spells by dear Blue Belles 
 And little maids all in a row! 
 
 
 
 You will need a whole sheet of “old blue” cardboard to make 
 your ten Blue Belles, since twenty dolls must be cut in order to 
 make each Blue Belle from a pair of dolls by pasting together 
 two heads and shoulders part way to the waist; for it will be the 
 two sets of legs which will enable the Blue Belles to stand upright. 
 Their feet, as you see, are unbound! Be sure to cut them very 
 flat along the soles, as here indicated, for otherwise they cannot 
 stand steadily. 
 
 Cut ovals of tan wrapping-paper and paste on the blue card- 
 board for faces. The flowers and head-bands may be of different 
 colors for variety’s sake, and you will find it fun to print the 
 names of the Blue Belles on their backs: Goody Two Shoes, 
 George, Fragrant Gentility, Silver Dew Drop are a few of the 
 girls about whom stories are told in this book. 
 
moi priate tt 
 LATO AL Ith <> 7 
 
 \@..@ 
 
 “Out of an indigo vat you can’t draw white calico.” 
 
 “One’s good deeds are known only at home; one’s bad deeds 
 far away.” 
 
 “Tf the root be neglected, what springs from it cannot be in 
 good condition.” 
 
IX 
 TEN TINKLING BLUE BELLES 
 
 THE Blue Belles tinkled because of their brace- 
 lets and earrings and necklaces. It was tinkle- 
 tinkle here, and tinkle-tinkle there, all day long 
 wherever they went; and when the new pupils 
 arrived (as arrive they did, in wheelbarrows, 
 chairs, and on foot) it was hobble-hobble here, 
 and hobble-hobble there, because their golden 
 lilies were so tiny that they could not walk with 
 anything but little mincing thumping steps— 
 swaying like slender lilies; and if you are won- 
 dering why Cynthia called them “ Blue Belles ” 
 here’s her letter home describing them: 
 
 “HONORABLE WEE SISTER, AND You, My G1to- 
 RIOUS BROTHER, PRECIOUS SCHOOLGOERS, 
 ALL: 
 
 “Little you dream what it really means to go 
 to school, you pampered little pencil-users, you 
 experienced ink-slingers, you wealthy book- 
 owners, you swift word-readers, you brilliant 
 print-understanders, I never dreamed myself 
 
 [119] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 how wealthy I had been in education until my 
 Plain Gray Lady set me wise; for it seems that 
 in China there are 70,000,000 children at this 
 very moment old enough to go to school, but with 
 schools large enough for 2,000,000 of them to 
 attend. If you will put your subtractors to work 
 on that problem you’ll soon get 68,000,000 blue- 
 cotton-trousered left-over children who have to 
 go on living school-less, book-less, read-less, 
 write-less lives! 
 
 “And that, of course, is quite too bad for 
 every one in China, especially for the girls, since 
 if anybody in a Chinese family is to be a school- 
 goer, naturally the son is chosen. My Plain Gray 
 Lady has, therefore, enlarged her school this 
 year, and because my Chinese is still too ‘ un- 
 easy ’ for me to do much else I’m to mother ten 
 of the newest and bluest of the Blue Belles. Be- 
 fore they arrived I went dashing here, there, and 
 everywhere, fixing their. funny makeshift beds, 
 which look for all the world like picnic tables at 
 a fairground—just planks laid across wooden 
 horses, with pieces of matting over the planks 
 for the Blue Belles to lie on, and—blue-cotton 
 quilts to cover them. 
 
 ““Dear me!’ I said. ‘ They’ll hate this! ’ 
 
 [ 120 ] 
 
TEN TINKLING BLUE BELLES 
 
 “*Dear no!’ laughed my very wise lady, 
 ‘they'll love this! For they sleep on wood or 
 bricks at home, and this will seem quite fine 
 enough, certainly far better than being turned 
 away from school as they were last year.’ Like 
 the Scotchman, yesterday I would have said, ‘I 
 hae me douts.’ But today, today! I know better. 
 
 “ For the little tinkling lassies have arrived, all 
 in their charming blue-cotton trousers, beaming 
 and bowing. It’s quite delicious to see how they 
 love the Plain Gray Lady and Amazing Grace. 
 They brought them gifts from home—colored 
 eges, melon-seeds, a bag of tea, an apple, beads. 
 All very nice, indeed, but of course being an un- 
 expected teacherette I would have had no gifts 
 at all if one blue-trousered maiden had not sud- 
 denly thrust into my hand an astonishingly liquid 
 eift. 
 
 “* Oh, thank you! Thank you!’ I gasped, 
 then whispered to Amazing Grace, ‘ what is 1t?’ 
 
 “ She wrinkled her nose in an amused smile: 
 * Hair-oil!’ she chuckled. ‘ P’an-P’an do say 
 how it make smooth the bad curl on your old-to- 
 death hair!’ 
 
 “* My old-to-death hair?’ I asked. 
 
 “Very too much faded by venerably age,’ 
 
 [ 121 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 Amazing Grace explained, her dear round face 
 all smile. 
 
 “Oh, my American darlings! Fancy my feel- 
 ings! For once upon a time a certain Harvard 
 student wrote a lovely sonnet about my goldi- 
 locks, and now—this! ‘ Old-to-death ’? 
 
 “ But as I was saying, all has been excitement 
 in our midst for two days, with the arrival of 
 pupils, baggage, bundles, parents, and relatives 
 even up to the third and fourth generation. 
 These latter came escorting my ten special 
 ‘heathen’ Blue Belles who were all as blue as 
 indigo, feeling like strangers in a strange land. 
 Abandoned. Deserted. Left at the mercy of all 
 sorts of evil spirits. They wept into their rice- 
 bowls at supper, and wailed upon their chop- 
 sticks and boo-hooed in all the dim corners. 
 
 “*Exert your Bo-Peep charms,’ the Plain 
 Gray Lady ordered: ‘ we’ve never been able to 
 have such a large delegation of brand new girls 
 all at one time.’ But before I had a chance to 
 see if my charms had any power perfect shrieks 
 and howls arose from the ten poor girls. 
 
 “ “What is it now? What is it?’ 
 
 “It seems that some of the older girls had told 
 them that they too would have to have their feet 
 
 [ 122 ] 
 
TEN TINKLING BLUE BELLES 
 
 unbound. One aristocratic little girl in a pea- 
 cock-green suit screamed that she would go 
 straight home before she’d become a common big- 
 foot-person. Not she! Never! Another girl 
 sobbed frantically that she couldn’t get home, she 
 didn’t know how to get there alone, it was so far 
 off, it took days of travel, ‘and if they make my 
 feet big Pll never get a mother-in-law. Boo-hoo! 
 Boo-hoo! What’s the use of filling my stomach 
 full of knowledge if I never get a mother-in- 
 law?’ 
 
 “JT never dreamed that Amazing Grace could 
 work such magic, but within an hour all ten of 
 those weeping Blue Belles were rolled up like 
 blue cocoons in their quilts, sleeping peacefully. 
 
 “ Down-stairs, the three of us sat wearily. It 
 had been our busiest day. My little Plain Gray 
 Lady was telling God about it—I shall never for- 
 get the end of her prayer: ‘ Father, it is such an 
 honor that You trust us with these little girls. 
 We know You don’t make heathen, only little— 
 children. Give us such hands and hearts and 
 voices that this little flock may see Who made us 
 lovely! Give us such deeds, such thoughts, such 
 words, that this little flock may follow where we 
 lead. O make us shepherdesses indeed, that there 
 
 [123 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 may be one fold, one flock, one Shepherd, on 
 earth—in China!—as in heaven. For Jestis’ 
 sake. Amen.’ 
 “After such a prayer as that I went to bed the 
 happiest girl in the world. Don’t you envy 
 “Your own sister 
 
 +B] 
 
 Cyn. 
 
 Cynthia had not supposed that such a large 
 school could be taught by so few teachers, just 
 the Plain Gray Lady, Amazing Grace, Beautiful 
 Pearl (the sister of Amazing Grace), and Mr. 
 Pepper. 
 
 Mr. Pepper came from the city every morning, 
 the most surprising and surprised man in town. 
 Surprising to Cynthia because he was so tre- 
 mendously solemn in his large goggles, his long 
 blue gown, and his exceedingly long finger-nails. 
 If ever a man was a scholar to his finger-tips it 
 was Mr. Pepper, for like many other Chinese 
 scholars of the old type he had never cut his 
 finger-nails, he even wore slender silver shields 
 on them to show that he was All Brain and never 
 did any work with his hands. 
 
 The Plain Gray Lady had to explain to Cyt 
 thia why he seemed so perpetually surprised. It 
 seems that when she engaged him as a teacher 
 
 [ 124 ] 
 

 
 TEN TINKLING BLUE BELLES 
 
 
 
 he had supposed that of course he would teach 
 boys, until a chance sentence showed him that the 
 pupils were to be girls. 
 
 “Tt is no use,” he said, wagging his head re- 
 eretfully. ‘“ No use at all. Girls cannot learn.” 
 
 “But they can! They will! They have! My 
 school is full of bright girls. Perhaps you have 
 been so busy reading the Chinese classics that 
 you have not noticed my pupils. Or perhaps you 
 have no children of your own? ”’ 
 
 “Five mouths and one scholar,” he answered. 
 
 “ What do you mean by that?” she had asked, 
 surprised in her turn. 
 
 “One son who can read, and five little less- 
 than-nothing daughters,” he sighed. “Just 
 mouths. Just stomachs. Little ‘lose-money- 
 persons’! It’s bad business raising girls for 
 other people, for when I get them a mother-in- 
 law apiece they won’t belong to me any longer. 
 A perfect waste of money.” 
 
 The Plain Gray Lady argued with him. “I 
 can make your daughters like sons! ” she boasted 
 finally. 
 
 “Excuse me! Pardon me!” said Mr. Pepper, 
 looking deeply pained. ‘ But it was the great 
 Sage himself [Confucius] who teaches that 
 
 [125 ] 
 

 
 A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 “Women indeed are human beings, but they are 
 of a lower order than men and can never attain 
 to full equality with them’ He also said, ‘A 
 stupid woman is less troublesome in the family 
 than a wise one.” 
 
 But Mr. Pepper, although so sad and so cer- 
 tain, was finally persuaded to accept the post of 
 writing teacher, and he even agreed to bring his 
 five girl “mouths” with him each day. Very 
 down-in-the-corner mouths they were, just at 
 first, because all five little Peppers were quite sure 
 that they could never get this thing called knowl- 
 edge. 
 
 But all of a sudden little Pearl Pepper began 
 to feel wisdom buzzing inside her head! Cuinna- 
 mon Flower felt it next; then little Miss Beauti- 
 ful Peace came down with a real attack of enthu- 
 siasm: “I can read! I know that character!” 
 
 “Tut! Tut!” said Silver Moon loftily, “I 
 also know it!” 
 
 The fifth little Pepper drooped her lips: “TI 
 must be very stupid! I can’t fix any of these 
 great thoughts in my miserable stomach.” 
 
 “T told you so!” warned Mr. Pepper. But of 
 course he began to see that if four of the five 
 could do it, Number Five might manage also. 
 
 [ 126 ] 
 
TEN TINKLING BLUE BELLES 
 
 
 
 And always he kept reminding himself of Grand- 
 mother Gate-Woman. 
 
 For of all secrets this was the most surprising 
 in China. Old Grandmother Gate-Woman 
 opened and closed the school gate. She was very, 
 very old, and very, very poor, and very, very 
 cross. Like Mr. Pepper she had considered the 
 school a huge joke. I am afraid that at first she 
 quite overlooked the goodness of the Plain Gray 
 Lady in giving her the position. For Grand- 
 mother Gate-Woman had had a sad history. 
 Only a little while before this story opens there 
 had been twenty-four persons living under her 
 rooftree: sons, daughters-in-law, grandsons, 
 granddaughters. She had ruled them with a 
 high hand as only grandmothers can rule, in 
 China. 
 
 But suddenly one merning there were only 
 twenty-three of them to rule, for one of them had 
 died in the night from “ Heavenly Blossoms ” 
 (small-pox). And in spite of tying red rags 
 around the small-pox goddess, the next day there 
 were only twenty-two living under that rooftree. 
 Moreover each new day the numbers kept on 
 dwindling: twenty—nineteen—sixteen—thirteen 
 —ten—nine—seven—five—four—three—two— 
 
 [127] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 until finally only Grandmother Gate-Woman was 
 left. Very old. Very feeble. Very broken- 
 hearted. With no rice in the rice-pot. No fire- 
 faggots for the stove. Slowly she starved and 
 froze for nine dreadful days, when the Plain 
 Gray Lady happened to hear of her. 
 
 “Venerable Old Aunt,” she said politely, “if 
 you will burn your clothes, which may have 
 Heavenly Blossoms germs in them, and consent 
 to wash yourself in hot water with this amber 
 germ-killing liquid, then I will be glad to have 
 you act as Gate-Woman for my school.” 
 
 It took a peck of persuasion to get the old wo- 
 man to dip in that pound of prevention: ‘‘ Wash? 
 At my age? Unsafe! Unsafe! I have never 
 had a bath. I would die! ” 
 
 “ But won’t you also die without rice and fire- 
 faggots?” 
 
 “Sadly, sadly true!” agreed the puzzled old 
 creature. But at last she decided to wash! She 
 burned her faded old clothes and put on the new 
 wadded garments. She sat at the gate of the 
 school as guardian of the girls inside. But she 
 always laughed at those girls. 
 
 “ Girls can’t really read!” she would jeer, her 
 wee dried-up face very cross. “ It’s just magic.” 
 
 [128 ] 
 
TEN TINKLING BLUE BELLES 
 
 “But we can read! And it isn’t magic, at all! 
 Listen to us.” 
 
 “Pouf! Pouf!” the old woman would puff, 
 provoked to find herself wrong, but little by little 
 she began to wish that she were only young 
 enough to read too. 
 
 It was about this time that Cynthia thoweht of 
 the secret. As best she could she told it to her 
 ten special Blue Belles. They tinkled and gig- 
 gled, and scampered to the gate. They whispered 
 in the ears of Grandmother Gate-Woman. And 
 every day after that there was a strange sight to 
 see: always one Blue Belle studying side by side 
 with that old woman. Telling her how Mr. 
 Pepper had drawn picture-letters in writing class 
 that morning. Telling her how Amazing Grace 
 had taught them this fact and the Plain Gray 
 Lady that fact. It was, of course, wonderful 
 practise for them; and equally wonderful prac- 
 tise for the old woman. But in order to keep it 
 a secret, the lessons could only happen in the 
 afternoon when the Plain Gray Lady went visit- 
 ing in town, from house to house. 
 
 “ Tell me this character again? ” Grandmother 
 Gate-Woman would ask. 
 
 “ That means ‘ happiness,’ Grandmother.” 
 
 [ 129 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 The old woman held the character close up to 
 her dim eyes: ““ Happiness! Happiness! Happi- 
 ness!” she whispered, poking her finger on the 
 word, “ Well, well! here it is again in God’s Let- 
 ter! And here! And here!” (For she was 
 reading the fifth chapter of Matthew, where the 
 Beatitudes appear. Perhaps you can figure out 
 which one of them the Blue Belle read to her 
 next. ) 
 
 “Fine, Grandmother! And this is what God’s 
 Letter says to you today: ‘The humble-hearted 
 ones have happiness because the heavenly coun- 
 iry 1s theirs. ” 
 
 “Kindly said! Kindly said!” nodded the old 
 woman. Then she shut her eyes, swaying back 
 and forth in her stiff chair intoning over and 
 over: “ The humble-hearted ones have happiness 
 —the humble-hearted ones have happiness—why, 
 this is all about me, isn’t it, Cinnamon Flower?” 
 
 You can see for yourself what a strange secret 
 this was for Cynthia to have started: an old 
 woman reading God’s Letter, taught by a young, 
 young scholar; both of them heathen—for a 
 while. 
 
 But there came a Sunday when Grandmother 
 Gate-Woman went to church. She liked it. She 
 
 [ 130 ] 
 
TEN TINKLING BLUE BELLES 
 
 liked the simple sermon preached by Pastor 
 Peace, the brother of Amazing Grace. The next 
 Sunday she brought her old-time neighbors to sit 
 beside her. The third Sunday she brought the 
 next-door neighbors of those other neighbors. 
 _By the fourth Sunday there were so many of 
 them that the Plain Gray Lady was astonished, 
 and the secret came out! 
 
 “Whatever has come over old Grandmother 
 Gate-Woman?” she whispered between the 
 hymn and the sermon. 
 
 Cynthia laughed softly: “Ten Tinkling Blue 
 Belles have come over her!” she whispered back. 
 
 But neither of them guessed what an interest- 
 ing ending this secret was to have. For Grand- 
 mother Gate-Woman grew disgusted with her 
 little Blue Belle teachers. 
 
 “What?” she would exclaim. “ You know 
 enough to teach me, but not enough to teach your- 
 selves? You still think that wooden idols are 
 worth worshiping? Ai ya, you make me sick. 
 Here I am, very old and stupid, but ’'ve become 
 aninviter. It’s all I can do yet, I just invite peo- 
 ple and invite people and invite people to come to 
 hear this new save-the-world-doctrine. But you 
 have two superior over-the-ocean ladies to watch 
 
 [131 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 all day long! Yet you haven’t begun inviting 
 anybody. Bah! Bah! Girls are indeed useless 
 affairs. Useless! Useless! At least, you could 
 be inviters! ” 
 
 The Blue Belles looked stunned. They stood 
 up very straight. They looked very prim. Very 
 severe. They had had no idea what an upsetting 
 thing their simple secret was threatening to be- 
 come. But every day they could not help but dis- 
 cover new things about it, for almost any time 
 of the day you could see Grandmother Gate- 
 Woman poke her head through the gate and call 
 to the passing pedlers, chair-bearers, barbers, 
 candy-sellers: “ Bend your ear! Bend your ear! 
 An old woman has a secret. God has written you 
 a Letter—listen ag 
 
 Through the little grating of the gate she 
 would pass on her secret to anybody who would 
 stop! look! listen! And because she was such an 
 “inviter ” the little chapel grew fuller and fuller 
 from Sunday to Sunday. 
 
 She had another secret scheme. For page by 
 page, sheet by sheet, Grandmother Gate-Woman 
 began handing out bits of God’s Letter to her 
 listeners. Perhaps you do not know that all 
 China considers printed paper sacred; it is never 
 
 [ 132 ] 
 
 
 
TEN TINKLING BLUE BELLES 
 
 to be dropped carelessly on the street; never 
 to be left lying there to be stepped on, rudely. 
 Therefore if the butchers, the bakers, the candle- 
 stick-makers refused to stop! look! listen! when 
 Grandmother Gate-Woman called to them she 
 -had her own secret scheme—she simply poked a 
 sheet of paper through the grating so that it 
 might flutter to the cobblestones outside. 
 
 But it never altogether reached the ground, for 
 some one would be sure to pick it up, some one 
 would be sure to carry it home, and of course 
 ~Grandmother Gate-Woman hoped that that some 
 one would read it. You might almost say that 
 she herself went home with each page of her 
 scattered Bible, for she was often heard praying: 
 “It’s just Your old Gate-Woman again, God. 
 Now quickly, quickly, God, help them to under- 
 stand that page! Softly, softly, God, step into 
 their hearts! Gently, gently, God, make the doc- 
 trine precious! It’s just Your old Gate-Woman 
 talking. Amen.” 
 
 Do you wonder Cynthia felt that she had really 
 begun her Shepherdess work when her secret had 
 turned out so beautifully? And before six 
 months were over there came a night when 
 several of the Blue Belles knelt in a row by the 
 
 [133 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 side of a one-planked bed, while their China 
 Shepherdess sang her prayer in English over 
 their dear little pig-tailed backs: 
 
 Saviour, like a Shepherd, lead us, 
 Much we need Thy tender care, 
 
 In Thy pleasant pastures feed us, 
 For our use Thy fold prepare. 
 
 [ 134 ] 
 

 
 If one little home-made star could make such a stir in China 
 perhaps you will send some others to China yourself, hoping that 
 they too may go and stand “over the place where the young 
 child lay.” In any case you will want to turn a Blue Belle (see 
 Chapter IX for story and pattern) into a Cradle-That-Walks-On- 
 Two-Feet by tying a red-coated baby on a Blue Belle’s back, 
 since sisters in China are the most obliging perambulators to be 
 found anywhere. 
 
min pS ocr 
 DOAN <.o DD 
 
 “A star, however willing, cannot help the moon.” 
 
 “When the heron and the oyster seize each other the fisherman 
 reaps the benefit.” 
 
 “ A poor man dwells unnoticed in the market-place; a rich man 
 will be visited by his distant relatives though living in the far- 
 off hills.” 
 
 ae 
 
x 
 
 Pipa ARS DHA WAS aS TOLEN: BY 
 THE THREE UN-WISE MEN 
 OF THE EAST 
 
 WHEN the Three Un-wise Men of the East 
 discovered what it was that they had stolen, they 
 were completely bewildered! And if they were 
 -astonished, one wonders how Bob Drummond 
 would have felt, for it was he who had made the 
 star: from gilt paper and cardboard and paste he 
 had made it one rainy. day, and he even printed a 
 verse on it in the neatest of lettering, fully intend- 
 ing to take it to church to be packed in the Christ- 
 mas-box which the Juniors were filling for Cyn- 
 thia. But when one owns the Best Forgettery in 
 America it is the easiest thing in the world never 
 to remember again about Christmas or boxes for 
 China. So off went the box, and here in America 
 stayed the little gilt star forlornly stretching its 
 five gold arms in the darkest corner of Bob’s 
 desk. But, of course, in time he discovered it 
 there, and instantly his forgettery gave a pro- 
 digious click—goodness; this, this was the star 
 
 [ 137 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 he had made to twinkle on top of Cynthia’s first 
 Chinese Christmas tree! With admirable rea- 
 soning he decided that more than one box could 
 reach China, so he sat down and wrote Cynthia 
 a letter: 
 
 ** DEAR SIN: 
 
 “I made you a star. Its ina box. Put it on 
 your tree if you want to. We like your letters a 
 lot. Dad gave one to the minister. He read it 
 allowed in church and people smiled. A laddy 
 said to me your sister has a cents of umer. But 
 dont feel badly over this, she ment all write, you 
 know how laddies are. 
 
 “When I was littler I spelt so awful I couldnt 
 tell pirate from parrot but now Ive learnt a lot 
 off you Sin. I hop you wont meat another parrot 
 on the river. He must have scart you styff; Bar- 
 bra cryed over that parrot pie story. Shes so 
 little, she thought the pie was made of a cookt 
 parrot, see? I told her parrots didnt get cookt 
 themself, they just cookt others. She said she 
 hopped they woodnt cook you Sin. Well a merry 
 Xmas to you Sin from 
 
 “Your lovely bro.,  « Rana 
 
 [ 138 ] 
 
THE STAR THAT WAS STOLEN 
 
 So off his star went, traveling by itself, but 
 neither Bob nor the postman nor the three Un- 
 wise Men ever dreamed what a stir that star 
 would create. 
 
 And certainly, remembering what it was made 
 of, you would not suppose it could possibly have 
 been such a terrific temptation to the sailors on 
 that little river house-boat carrying mail to all 
 the towns along the way. But, after all, it was 
 the most natural thing in the world for them to 
 peer enviously inside the cabin and look at those 
 bundles—fat ones, thin ones, long ones, short 
 ones—more than could be counted on the fingers 
 of ten hands. 
 
 Said the youngest Un-wise Man (and he was 
 only thirteen, with the startling name of Celes- 
 tial Obedience!) : “ When we reach the City of 
 Clouds, it will be the naming day for the new 
 baby of my cousin Tai Fah Min, and I shall lose 
 face if I have nothing to give to the child for 
 good luck.” 
 
 “Only too true!” sighed the second Un-wise 
 Man sympathetically. 
 
 “T am tired of being such a miserably unno- 
 ticed relative,” complained poor Celestial Obedi- 
 ence. “ Here I go traveling to marvelous places, 
 
 [ 139 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 but what glory do I bring back to startle my rela- 
 tives? They say, ‘Bah, the gods have stolen 
 away his wits!’ I shall be the most insignificant 
 worm in town without a present for this baby.” 
 
 “Here! Hear!” groaned the other Un-wise 
 Man with his eyes fastened on the cabin door, as 
 if inside could be found the remedy to keep him 
 from “losing face.” So of course you see how it 
 came to pass that with so many packages on 
 board, the littlest of them (chosen because small 
 parcels are often most precious, and this one rat- 
 tled enticingly ) could be sneaked up a blue-cotton 
 sleeve without any one’s being the wiser. 
 
 And on the twenty-fourth day of December 
 their boat bumped against the banks of the City 
 of Clouds, where the China Shepherdess impa- 
 tiently waited while a coolie piled her boxes on 
 the mission wheelbarrow and then trundled them 
 hastily off where a certain tree stood waiting— 
 bare, but hopeful! 
 
 Meanwhile the Three Un-wise Men slipped 
 quietly away to the naming party of Celestial 
 Obedience’s cousin’s baby. Sucha party! Every 
 possible neighbor and relative was squeezed in- 
 side that little house, each armed with a good- 
 luck present. The astonished baby nearly stared 
 
 [ 140 ] 
 
THE STAR THAT WAS STOLEN 
 
 his eyes out when the Solemn Aunt pulled on his 
 head a crimson-satin cap trimmed with tiny look- 
 ing-glasses. “ This,” said she, “will keep the 
 evil spirits away from your honorable new head, 
 since no spirit has ever been able to look at him- 
 self in a mirror.” 
 
 Next came the Sickly Aunt, hobbling up with a 
 pair of slippers with cats’ paws fastened on the 
 toes. “To keep your glorious feet from stum- 
 bling,” she croaked in her husky voice. 
 
 And all this time, Celestial Obedience stood in 
 the doorway noticing that the baby’s mother was 
 not really liking any of the presents. “ Almost 
 as if she had no fear of spirits,” thought he. 
 “Strange if she should like my present best.” 
 
 But before he could get near enough a Very 
 Pompous Uncle hung over the baby’s head a pic- 
 ture of a hideous green devil beating a red gong. 
 “ This,” thundered the Uncle, “ will drive away 
 the evil spirits.” 
 
 “Um-m-m!”? murmured the admiring rela- 
 tives, the little mother looking doubtful. Thena 
 Stingy Cousin brought a red string. “It may 
 seem a mere trifle,” she simpered, “ but tie it over 
 the gate-post and the baby will never get prickly 
 heat—never! I’ve tried it with all of mine.” 
 
 [ 141 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 This kept up until finally the two older Un-wise 
 Men pushed Celestial Obedience forward to make 
 his little speech. “ Illustrious and never-to-be- 
 equaled child,” he said, bowing profusely, “ your 
 stupid sailor cousin brings you a trifling nothing 
 from the distant places of the Middle Flowery 
 Kingdom.” 
 
 “Mercy on us,” gasped the aunts and uncles, 
 “if here isn’t that wretched Celestial Obedience 
 giving the baby something in a box!” 
 
 “All this traveling up and down the river has 
 done the boy good—quite a speech, wasn’t it?” 
 
 “ Get out of my way,” ordered a rich and peey- 
 ish relative, “how can I see what’s in that fel- 
 low’s box when you block the view? ” 
 
 “Don’t you suppose I’m curious, too?” 
 snapped the obstacle. 
 
 All of this was very pleasant for Celestial Obe- 
 dience to overhear—noticed at last he was! 
 
 Meanwhile the baby’s mother was untying the 
 string and ripping off the paper. It must be ad- 
 mitted that Celestial Obedience was as curious as 
 she to know the contents. 
 
 “The string is red—that’s a good sign,” com- 
 mented a cousin. 
 
 “The box is red, too. Oh, very good luck.” 
 
 [ 142 ] 
 
THE STAR THAT WAS STOLEN 
 
 “And something rattles inside! I declare the 
 boy has outdone himself—he will be rice-less for 
 a year on account of this extravagance. Oh, 
 look! look! there itis! But what is it?” 
 
 Oh, yes, that was the burning question—what 
 was this gold thing with five sharp points? The 
 uncles did not know. The aunts did not know. 
 The cousins did not know. Certainly Celestial 
 Obedience did not know. 
 
 But the quiet little mother gave one astonished 
 look, then cried radiantly: “ A star! I do declare 
 —a star!” 
 
 “What’s it for, stupid creature?” asked her 
 husband impatiently. 
 
 “T—only—know,” she gasped, “ that—the— 
 winter—I—went—to—the—Christians’ School 
 —they—talked—about—a—star.”’ 
 
 * Ah—ha!” hissed the uncles and aunts in a 
 dreadful chorus, turning savagely on poor Celes- 
 tial Obedience, “how dare you bring ill luck on 
 a poor innocent baby by giving him something 
 Christian? Bah, you dangerous fellow, here’s 
 his silly mother been bewitched all these years be- 
 cause of spending a few weeks with those foreign 
 devils. Put him outdoors, the half-witted idiot! ” 
 
 His grandness oozed away in a sorry trickle. 
 
 [ 143 ] 
 

 
 A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 Whatahorror! To have happened to steal some- 
 thing so utterly inappropriate. No wonder the 
 grandparents were provoked, and the uncles and 
 cousins and aunts. He hung his head. 
 
 But the two other Un-wise Men poked him in 
 the ribs. “ Don’t lose your face!” they whis- 
 pered, and one of them said aloud: “ It passes 
 understanding how you fail to notice the poor 
 boy’s kindness! Didn’t he go all the way to 
 Shanghai for this treasure? Of course he did! 
 And didn’t he drag it through perils of robbers 
 and rapids? Of course he did! And isn’t this 
 season and this weather a time when men hug the 
 shore? Bah, his bravery is colossal. He did 
 what only grown men do, all for the good of his 
 little new cousin’s present.” 
 
 “Big words! But what’s his present for? 
 Speak up!” the others cried. The poor Un-wise 
 Man scratched his head and glared hopelessly at 
 the third Un-wise Man. The third Un-wise Man 
 cocked his head on one side and thought deeply. 
 Then in a sepulchral tone he said: “ We dare not 
 tell you all, but this we can say—it is a secret, 
 specially beneficial to babies born at this season 
 of the year. He will be sure to grow up wiser 
 and braver and stronger than any other child in 
 
 [ 144 ] 
 
THE STAR THAT WAS STOLEN 
 
 town, all on account of this star which Celestial 
 Obedience went through tortures to procure.” 
 
 “Tt must be very stiff magic!” they said. 
 
 “Very stiff!” agreed Celestial Obedience. 
 ~ “ Wouldn’t do to tell the secret,” said the Un- 
 wise Man. “ Once speak it in the air and the up- 
 per-air demons would overhear—and then, mis- 
 fortune! ” 
 
 “Just so!” agreed the party soberly. “ And 
 where should we put this superlative magic? ”’ 
 
 Instantly the Pompous Uncle replied, “ Put it 
 over my green demon, of course; then the star 
 can watch the demon and the demon can watch 
 the gong and the gong can scare away the evil 
 spirits—what could possibly happen to the child 
 then?” 
 
 What, indeed! But surely Bob Drummond 
 would have gasped to see the reverent ceremony 
 with which his little star was fastened on the 
 wall, while the baby stared round-eyed at the Un- 
 wise Men, until the youngest of them felt uncom- 
 fortable inside, and lay down to sleep that night 
 wondering in his heart of hearts about that star 
 —what sort of a thing was it, anyhow? 
 
 The baby’s mother wondered, too. Dim 
 memories flickered and died out. It was so long 
 
 [ 145 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 ago (mine years) since she had spent those 
 months in school, and what with whippings and 
 sneerings and jeerings, all she used to know had 
 been almost forgotten. Almost, but not quite. 
 So the next morning she took the piece of paper 
 in which the box had been wrapped, and fastened 
 it to the outer gate-post, so that the stamps and 
 the writing showed. 
 
 “O very far-away God of the Christians,” she 
 prayed, “they may keep me indoors like a slave 
 under their rooftree, they may whip me for re- 
 membering all the little odds and ends of learn- 
 ing, but oh! let something come of this paper on 
 the gate!” 
 
 And something did. 
 
 For Cynthia, hurrying down that street on the 
 morning of December twenty-fifth, was amazed 
 to see her own name and address attached to a 
 gate-post, written in the plainest kind of Ameri- 
 can-boy penmanship. Needless to say she went 
 indoors. And needless to say she did not hurry 
 out. There was too much to hear and tell. 
 
 “But how wonderful!” she cried as they 
 handed her the star which should have been her 
 own. “See for yourselves that the star has 
 somehow come where it belongs, for on it is a 
 
 [ 146 ] 
 
THE STAR THAT WAS STOLEN 
 
 Bible verse which plainly says, ‘And the star 
 came and stood over where the young child lay.’ 
 To think you have a Christmas Baby in your 
 home—a little Jesus-Christ-Child, the very first 
 I’ve seen in town. Oh, such an honor! You 
 must be very happy.” 
 
 “W-we are!” stammered the gratified grand- 
 parents. 
 
 * But you must show me how to bring up such 
 a special kind of child,” the mother begged. 
 
 “ That’s what I came to China for,” Cynthia 
 smiled, thankful that God uses even Un-wise 
 Men and little cardboard stars to bring peace on 
 earth, good will to men. 
 
 [ 147 ] 
 

 

 
 A brown or gray shoe-box (or hat-box, if you want something 
 still larger) will make a fine home for the Peppers. The bottom 
 will form the floor, and doors like shutters may be cut to swing 
 on the uncut parts like hinges (until the Oculist steals it). Paint 
 a door-god on the inside of each panel in gorgeous colors. Per- 
 haps you could model an idol from moulding clay for use in 
 -Chapter XVI. A shoe-button will form the door-knob—punch 
 the shank through the cardboard and use a small safety pin to 
 fasten it on the back side. 
 
 To secure an even pattern for the roof, fold a piece of news- 
 paper, and starting from the fold draw one-half the roof. Cut 
 this out, unfold, and spread on bright-green cardboard. ‘Trace 
 the outline, and cut out two roofs. Before fastening these in 
 place, it will be necessary to slit down each corner of the box 
 about an inch. Bend the front and back wall inward for that 
 half inch and clamp the green roof to this slanting inner support 
 with brass paper fasteners. It will be necessary to cut away 
 triangles of the projecting side walls. Be sure to have the eaves 
 overhang the front and back walls. The tops of the roof may 
 now be brought together into a ridge and either sewed or glued 
 or clamped, then painted black. Tiling may be indicated by a 
 few curving strokes. Why not have a whole street of houses? 
 What fun to point out the House of the Stolen Star (Chapter X), 
 of the Vacuum-cleaning Pig (Chapter XIV), of Deacon Ding 
 (Chapter XXI), etc., etc. 
 
mim master 
 IBA M AGODA 
 
 “ Happiness and trouble stand at every one’s gate; yours is the 
 choice which you will invite in.” 
 
 “ Nobody’s family can hang out the sign, ‘ Nothing the matter 
 here.’ ” 
 
 “Water which is distant is no good for a fire which is near.” 
 
XI 
 THE LOST-AND-FOUND FRONT DOOR 
 
 You must admit that there is nothing quite like 
 a front door. In America it shuts out everybody. 
 And a front door in China is like our doors, only 
 much more so! For there is that little matter of 
 evil spirits who must also be shut out. Espe- 
 cially at New Year’s time. It is bad enough all 
 the year round, as you already know: so bad that 
 devil screens guard every front door on the out- 
 side while paper door-gods painted in gorgeous 
 reds and greens guard the inside. But at New 
 Year’s time there has been so much houseclean- 
 ing going on beforehand that every evil spirit in 
 all China goes house-hunting for some quiet nook 
 or cranny to rest his little invisible heels! Al- 
 most, you feel sorry for him, don’t you? Until 
 you remember the spiteful, frightful things he is 
 supposed to do to human beings—sickness and 
 poverty; burnt food and poor crops; a fire that 
 smokes; eyes that see dimly; teeth with such an 
 ache that you can fairly feel that little spirit pat- 
 tering from tooth to tooth, sitting in a down- 
 
 [151 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 stairs tooth to kick up its heels in glee, then scam- 
 pering to an up-stairs tooth to go to bed for the 
 night, causing the whole cheek to puff and puff 
 and puff! 
 
 Surely you realize now about the charms on 
 chimneys, and the shoot-the-chutes of the curv- 
 ing rooftops. And always at New Year’s time 
 you would realize also the preciousness of the 
 front door. 
 
 Therefore, consider the horror of the Five Lit- 
 tle Peppers when on New Year’s Eve the front 
 door of their home had disappeared! For once, 
 at least, the feelings of these Blue Belles matched 
 their garments. Blue as indigo, they were; both 
 they and their brother, their uncles, their aunts, 
 their parents, their grandparents. For this was 
 a calamity! A family simply dared not start a 
 New Year without a door. Every evil spirit in 
 the Middle Flowery Kingdom would come crush- 
 ing and rushing inside. The family would lose 
 all their money, they would starve, they would 
 be sick, they would die! You can see for yourself 
 why they were blue. 
 
 Grandfather Pepper spoke up. He was so 
 deaf that he spoke far louder than was necessary, 
 and his voice boomed out in a truly terrific fash- 
 
 [152] 
 
THE LOST-AND-FOUND FRONT DOOR 
 
 ion. (The five Blue Belle Peppers did wish that 
 he would whisper.) “ Who,’ he demanded 
 sternly, “ who in this family owes a debt? ” 
 
 Ah, that was it! Only one thing made doors 
 disappear on New Year’s Eve—a debt. For any- 
 body to whom you owed money felt a perfect 
 right to steal away your door, knowing only too 
 well that you would pay that debt by hook or by 
 crook at once in order to safeguard your premises 
 from the home-seeking demons swarming in the 
 outer air on New Year’s. 
 
 “ Who owes a debt?”’ boomed grandfather. 
 
 “Not I!” said one Uncle Pepper. 
 
 “Nor I!” said a second. 
 
 “Nor I!” said a third. 
 
 “Nor I!” said our own Mr. Pepper, the 
 scholar, he with the goggles and finger shields. 
 
 “ Now think!” boomed grandfather. “ Your 
 mind is so often off with the ancients. Think! 
 Have you not bought one of the four jewels of a 
 scholar—paper, brushes, inkslab, ink—and left it 
 unpaid for?” 
 
 “ No, no!” said Mr. Pepper, wagging his head. 
 Whereupon every Uncle Pepper looked accus- 
 ingly at every Aunt Pepper: “ How about you, 
 Inside Person?” 
 
 [153 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 But the aunts wagged their heads. No, not 
 they! 
 
 It was a perfectly awful occasion. Where, oh, 
 where was the door? And who, oh, who had 
 stolen it? There was only one thing to do, and 
 they did it by standing in the doorless doorway 
 tossing off firecrackers into the air, ten or twelve 
 to each minute, for evil spirits have a perfect hor- 
 ror of noise. They pick up their invisible heels 
 and dash madly away. Suddenly in the midst 
 of the terrific din our own Mr. Pepper clapped 
 his hand to his forehead and cried: “ I’ve got it! 
 I know!” 
 
 “Speak louder!” boomed grandfather. 
 
 Our Mr. Pepper yelled into his father’s ear: 
 “ It’s these spectacles, Ancient and Honorable; I 
 owe the Oculist.” 
 
 “Mercy on us!” screamed his Inside Person 
 (wife) almost fainting, while the Blue Belles 
 hung their heads for shame to think that it was 
 Papa Pepper causing all the trouble. 
 
 Grandfather exploded with wrath. The uncles 
 exploded their firecrackers. Mr. Pepper went 
 dashing off through the darkness with a bobbing 
 paper lantern to the home of the Oculist, with a 
 string of cash to pay his bill. And all this time 
 
 { 154 } 
 
THE LOST-AND-FOUND FRONT DOOR 
 
 Cynthia lay wide-awake in bed startled by the 
 awful noises everywhere: “ Like five Fourths of 
 July rolled in one! Less than ever do I believe in 
 this Firecracker Insurance Company! ” she com- 
 plained to the ceiling. But the ceiling looked 
 flatly disapproving as if about to say: “ It’s hap- 
 pened on New Year’s for hundreds of years. It 
 will keep on for hundreds more. Grin and bear 
 it.” “Twill not grin!” vowed Cynthia. 
 
 Meanwhile Mr. Pepper had reached the Ocu- 
 list’s home and found him celebrating noisily. 
 “ Here is the cash for my glasses, you ungracious 
 person. Why did you not let me know I was in 
 your debt? I would gladly have paid you.” 
 
 “Let you know?” roared the Oculist crossly. 
 “Haven’t I been letting you know? Haven't I 
 come telling you that my rice-bowl was empty, 
 that my children were starving, that my poor 
 aged parents were falling into their very coffins 
 from hunger and cold? Pouf! Told you, in- 
 deed! I’ve done nothing but tell you. But you 
 keep your nose in a book and your mind in the 
 dim past. Oculists’ stomachs mean nothing to 
 you. Oculists’ parents mean noth f 
 
 “ Oh, c-come n-now, stammered Mr. Pepper 
 regretfully, “I’m not quite so bad as that. 
 
 [155 ] 
 
 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 Here’s your cash, my poor fellow. Truly I am 
 sadly forgetful. Truly repentant. Now give me 
 my front door, please.” 
 
 “All gone! Cut up for kindling wood! 
 Burned in the oven! All gone!” clucked the 
 Oculist indifferently. 
 
 “Do not use up the air with such pleasantries,” 
 begged Mr. Pepper. “It is necessary for me to 
 have glasses because I am a professor at the 
 Heavenly Education-Instilling School. I have 
 many weighty matters on my mind. Many 
 problems. I apologize for my thoughtlessness. 
 But now please, magnanimously, graciously, con- 
 descend to return to me my door.” 
 
 “Gone up in smoke! All gone!” 
 
 “But you only took it this afternoon—how 
 could it be burned already? Surely you are sim- 
 ply making holiday sport with me. Yet think, 
 I pray you, of my old father at home, terrified; 
 my old mother, pale with fear 3 
 
 “Indeed! Do you say it? Well, even so was 
 my own father terrified of starving, and my own 
 mother pale from fear of being roofless. Yet you 
 turned deaf ears to my bills. So now gently, 
 gently, be gone.” 
 
 “My one bill could not feed your parents long! 
 
 [ 156 ] 
 
 
 
THE LOST-AND-FOUND FRONT DOOR 
 
 One small pair of glasses could not make a roof- 
 tree fall. Come now, give me my door,” begged 
 Mr. Pepper. 
 
 “The door? What door? How you talk! I 
 ‘burned it, I tell you. Gently, gently, be gone, so 
 that I may start my New Year’s celebration. 
 See, the moon is rising. It is not good luck to be 
 arguing any longer. Please trouble me no more. 
 I must burn my last year’s door-god and paste up 
 
 a new one.” 
 
 _ And before Mr. Pepper knew what was hap- 
 pening, he was wandering the street with his 
 little pale lantern, listening to the boom of giant 
 firecrackers and seeing cascades of fireworks 
 lighting the sky. Just as he was feeling the most 
 desperate he glanced up at the Heavenly Educa- 
 tion-Instilling School. There was a light in an 
 upper room. Perhaps the Honorable Principal 
 could help him, for he seemed to lack courage to 
 go home. It is true that he might “ lose face” by 
 appealing to a woman; but alas! he would lose 
 just as much if the door were not saved. 
 
 He knocked at the gate. But old Grandmother 
 Gate-Woman slept soundly. It seemed unbe- 
 lievable to him that she who, last year, had set 
 off firecrackers with her neighbors, should now 
 
 [ 157 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 feel safe enough to sleep without firecracker in- 
 surance. But he was much too dignified to give 
 any further consideration to a mere stupid old 
 woman, even when at last she came clumping to 
 the gate to let him in. 
 
 Cynthia came down-stairs first. He explained 
 his tragic situation: no front door! “ That’s too 
 bad,” she said sympathetically, “‘ for it’s so cold.” 
 
 “ Cold?” he echoed, surprised. ‘‘ Cold doesn’t 
 matter. It’s the New Year’s demons seeking new 
 homes.” 
 
 Cynthia was puzzled, but the Plain Gray Lady 
 coming into the room understood only too well: 
 “My heart is heavy for you, Mr. Pepper,” she 
 said. “ You had told me that you were an ear- 
 nest inquirer about my save-the-world-doctrine. 
 You told me that such words as the Bible con- 
 tains were rare in China, that they very much 
 entered into you.” 
 
 “Truly! Truly!” he bowed. “ But will the 
 Honorable Christian God guard the door? On 
 New Year’s? ” 
 
 “T think I will go home with you right now 
 and try to open up this doctrine more plainly to 
 your family, Mr. Pepper.” And a few minutes 
 later, under the stars and the moon, a little pro- 
 
 [158 ] 
 
THE LOST-AND-FOUND FRONT DOOR 
 
 cession followed after Mr. Pepper’s lantern as he 
 hurried to his doorless home. The firecrackers 
 were still booming. Grandfather still booming, 
 also, in disgust. 
 
 The five blue little Blue Belles clung to Cyn- 
 thia’s knees: “ Oh, Shepherdess! Shepherdess! ” 
 they sobbed. 
 
 The Plain Gray Lady stood up very straight 
 and serious: “I have brought you a Door,’ she 
 said. 
 
 “What is this over-the-ocean woman say- 
 ing?” boomed grandfather. 
 
 “She says she has brought us a door!” 
 shouted the family in a chorus, looking at the 
 little lady expecting to see a real door appear in 
 her empty hands. They offered her a seat. 
 After all the proper persuasion she consented to 
 sit in it. 
 
 “ Tf I were you,” she said, “ I would tack up a 
 quilt over the door-opening to protect it until 
 morning.” This was such a sensible plan that a 
 heavy quilt was soon in place. Then the Plain 
 Gray Lady told her story of the God-Who-Is-A- 
 Door. ‘“ Iam the door,” He had said of Himself. 
 She explained very carefully what this meant. 
 She also quoted from the Hundred and Twenty- 
 
 [159 ] 
 

 
 A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 first Psalm: “ The Lord shall preserve thy com- 
 ing in and thy going out from this day forth, even 
 forevermore.” She told them about America, 
 where nobody worried at all about evil spirits. 
 She told them that the only evil spirit in the 
 world is the spirit of envy and hatred and sin in 
 a person’s own heart. 
 
 “T have been in China twenty years,” she said. 
 “T used to live in a town where the people loved 
 me, then a few years ago I came here where 
 every one seemed to hate me, at first. Yet I was 
 safe. Jesus Christ, the Door, stood between me 
 and dangers. He can stand between you and 
 dangers. For the God who made the air and the 
 water, made you too.” 
 
 “Tt sounds very good,” boomed Grandfather. 
 “ Tell us again.” 
 
 The Plain Gray Lady told them again. The 
 Five Little Peppers dared to put in a word some- 
 times, themselves, until their father felt actually 
 proud of the wisdom they seemed to have stored 
 in their heads. Whole verses of Bible came 
 tripping glibly off their tongues! ‘‘ You have 
 made my daughters almost as good as sons,” he 
 acknowledged. The Five Little Peppers tried to 
 look demure. And succeeded! 
 
 [ 160 ] 
 
THE LOST-AND-FOUND FRONT DOOR 
 
 Along toward morning there was a great com- 
 motion heard just outside the quilt hanging at 
 the door-way. When the family hurried out to 
 see what was the matter they were simply over- 
 come to see the Spectacle-Selling Oculist with 
 three coolies and a door. The door! The Ocu- 
 list was very meek. He looked rather sheepish. 
 It was Grandmother Gate-Woman who did most 
 of the talking: 
 
 “Well, here’s the door! I went and got it. 
 After Mr. Pepper left the school last night I 
 thought maybe God wanted Mr. Pepper to have 
 his door, so I just went over to the Oculist and 
 gave him a good talking to! A woman of my age 
 has some privileges, I hope! The very idea— 
 stealing a door. Any door. At any time. It 
 says in God’s Letter, ‘Thou shalt not steal.’ 
 Well, here’s the door! ” 
 
 Mr. Pepper looked perfectly thunderstruck. 
 He actually had to swallow before he found his 
 voice: “ But what made you do it? You don’t 
 know me. I’ve never troubled to speak to you. 
 And you don’t know my family at all.” 
 
 “Why yes, I do,” Grandmother Gate-Woman 
 chuckled, pointing a merry thumb at each of the 
 Peppers in turn. “ You’re God’s child, and 
 
 [161 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 you're God’s child, and you, and you, and you! 
 Well, I’m God’s child too. So that makes us 
 brothers and sisters. I thought I had lost all my 
 family, but now just look at me! Everybody be- 
 longs to me! And if a brother of mine wants a 
 door which another brother of mine has stolen, I. 
 just goand getit. Seer” 
 
 But the Peppers simply could not see. 
 
 “ Oh, well, I don’t wonder you’re surprised. I 
 haven’t known it myself very long. But only 
 yesterday I spelled a verse out of God’s Letter. 
 It said, ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’ ‘No, 
 Lord, I’m not,’ I answered, ‘but I will be if 
 You'll please show me how.’ And last night God 
 showed me about the door. That’s all! See?” 
 
 But the Peppers really could not see. They 
 still looked stunned. Grandmother Gate-Woman 
 chuckled again. “It’s really a sort of a joke, if 
 you look at it one way. You see, I’m such a dull 
 stupid old woman that I can’t fix God’s Letter in 
 my mind unless I trot right off and practise it 
 on somebody. See?” 
 
 And still nobody saw! “ Stupid?” thought 
 Cynthia, amazed. “Stupid? This dear brave 
 old saint trudging through dark Chinese streets 
 at midnight to demand a stranger’s front door 
 
 [ 162 ] 
 
THE LOST-AND-FOUND FRONT DOOR 
 
 from another stranger? Surely here is one of 
 God’s great flaming apostles!” 
 
 So it was a wonderful New Year’s Day for 
 everybody after all. The Peppers dressed in 
 their new clothes and called on all their friends. 
 The Blue Belles stuffed all day long on peanuts 
 and candy and melon-seeds. They blew whistles 
 and played games. They collected the big red 
 calling-cards left by the visitors who came to see 
 them. In fact, it was almost like any other New 
 Year’s Day. Almost; but not quite. For although 
 Grandfather burned the door-god, he did not 
 burn any spirit money with it to insure a good 
 report of himself in the upper air. Neither did 
 he paste up a new door-god as he always had 
 done on other New Years. So that you can see 
 how the front door of a Chinese Christian be- 
 comes converted with the rest of the family! 
 
 [ 163 ] 
 
.. 
 i, i9 ad ° 
 ty ae 
 
 
 

 
 You can see for yourself that two horns was not the kind of 
 “wee, modest timid beastie” about which Bobbie Burns once 
 wrote a poem. You can make a very presentable water buffalo for 
 this story if you ask your grocer for a cardboard advertisement of 
 the Horlick’s Malted Milk cow. Paste extra half-moon horns in 
 place and paint the whole animal a dark shaggy gray in streaks, 
 with a Buffalo Bill perched on its back. Make the poor orphan 
 boy as patched as possible. 
 
minmit tt 
 LADA MPS Th th 
 
 “Do not lace your boots in a melon field or adjust your hat 
 under a plum tree if you would avoid suspicion.” 
 
 “The insect can fly but ten paces, but in the tail of a noble 
 steed he can go a thousand miles.” 
 
 “The locust chases the cicada, ignorant that the yellow bird is 
 after it.” 
 
XII 
 
 THE HEART OF BUFFALO BILL WAS 
 FIVE-JACKETS-COLD 
 
 NOTHING is more uncomfortable than to be 
 five-jackets-cold in China without the five jackets 
 to wear. Once upon a time Buffalo Bill could 
 have had all the jackets he pleased: on the coldest 
 five-coat-days he would put on one, he would put 
 on two, he would put on three, and then with 
 difficult wrigglings and stretchings he would 
 manage to squeeze into jackets number four and 
 five; until what had been originally a thin little 
 pillar of a boy became a regular pillow. So 
 plump that his arms would not move, and so fat 
 that he could hardly bend to see his toes. But 
 that was long ago before Feng Shui brought such 
 bad luck to his rooftree. 
 
 On this particular day Buffalo Bill looked ex- 
 actly like a little smoking chimney in the freezing 
 morning air. He thrashed around with his arms 
 like an awkward scarecrow ina heavy wind as he 
 tried to keep warm, for he was reduced to wear- 
 ing only one thin blue-cotton jacket; his nose 
 
 [ 167 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 grew so red that you might have feared it would 
 worry Two Horns, the buffalo, except for the 
 fact that nothing about Buffalo Bill could possi- 
 bly frighten Two Horns, and neither could any- 
 thing about the fierce Two Horns possibly 
 frighten Buffalo Bill. But that is not saying that 
 neither of them could not frighten Miss Cynthia 
 Bo-Peep! No indeed! For you are soon to see 
 that charming young lady running a Marathon 
 race which still seems to her like one long wild 
 nightmare. 
 
 You are therefore to picture Buffalo Bill smok- 
 ing like a little chimney as his breath rose in the 
 chilly air, while he himself crouched down beside 
 the giant body of Two Horns, who lay in the half- 
 frozen meadow looking exactly like a great 
 brown boulder. He was so pleasantly warm that 
 Buffalo Bill was almost asleep with the comfort 
 of it, when suddenly he jumped up awakened by 
 a most peculiar noise. The noise was Cynthia, 
 singing as she took a short cut across the fields on 
 her way to visit the Handkerchief Family whom 
 you met a little while ago. 
 
 Cynthia was very happy because she had poll- 
 parroted so much Chinese that at last the Plain 
 Gray Lady could send her on errands alone! She 
 
 [ 168 ] 
 
THE HEART OF BUFFALO BILL 
 
 began to feel as Bo-Peep must have felt when the 
 tails returned to her sheep! She could not sing 
 too loudly or rejoice too heartily.. Besides, was 
 she not all alone? 
 
 Imagine her astonishment, therefore, when 
 she saw steam rising from behind a giant boulder. 
 “Dear me, some one has built afire over there, 
 I'd better keep quiet,” for of course it might be 
 thieves or bandits—or—pirates on land. Softly 
 she walked on her way, watching the steam cau- 
 tiously until she saw a little tattered boy rise up 
 from behind the boulder and begin to thrash 
 around with his arms like a scarecrow in a gale 
 or a windmill in Holland. One cannot be afraid 
 of little Chinese boys as comical as that, so Cyn- 
 thia sang a greeting across the field to him: 
 “Have you eaten your rice?” since this is the 
 politest possible way to say ‘“‘ How do you do?” 
 in China. 
 
 “Have eaten,” mumbled the startled Buffalo 
 Bill, for it was not altogether pleasant to be 
 awakened from sleep by a strange she-person 
 marching over toward him. He began to feel 
 very shy. Now of course you are prepared for 
 what is coming, aren’t you? Cynthia, walking 
 toward a rock to practise Chinese on a little boy! 
 
 [ 169 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 Cynthia, wearing the jolliest red sweater ever 
 knit by any college girl, with a long red muffler 
 streaming east and west from her shoulders! 
 
 The bashful boy grew so embarrassed that he 
 kicked the rock with his foot. The rock arose. 
 The rock, of course, was Two Horns! Two 
 Horns took one lazy glance at the red she-person 
 advancing, then grew positively enchanted. 
 
 For her part, Cynthia took one look at this rock 
 which suddenly had four legs, a lashing tail, and 
 great horns curving like a new moon, then Cyn- 
 thia, I regret to state, grew positively panic-y 
 with the vision. She began to run. 
 
 The rock-on-legs began to run after her. Buf- 
 falo Bill began to run after the rock-on-legs. 
 Any one with sufficient leisure could have quoted 
 the Chinese proverb, “ The locust chases the ci- 
 cada ignorant that the yellow bird is after it.” 
 But there was no leisure in the world just then, 
 for Buffalo Bill was yelling wildly: “ Halt! 
 Halt! ” 
 
 Two Horns was chortling with glee. Halt? 
 now? with all this jolly fun? Not much! It 
 made no difference how hard little boys pulled 
 his tail he merrily chased the red lady, dragging 
 the little boys after him pell-mell. Or was it just 
 
 [ 170 ] 
 
THE HEART OF BUFFALO BILL 
 
 one little boy? For he recognized the loved voice. 
 He turned his head and bellowed pleasantly: 
 “Don’t spoil my fun, old pal!”. It was this 
 trifling delay alone which saved Cynthia. Some- 
 
 - how or other she clambered frantically up a stone 
 
 wall, so high that she could safely look down at 
 Two Horns as he champed on the ground below 
 her. 
 
 Buffalo Bill looked up at the lady. Surely this 
 was the friend of his Handkerchief-Giver. He 
 bowed. 
 
 “Bad boy!” called Cynthia. “Go lose your 
 head at once! ” 
 
 He had never been so astonished in his life. 
 What ingratitude was this? Hadn’t he run and 
 run and run? Why must he lose his head? For 
 of course he had no way of knowing that the lady 
 was so new in China that her words grew fright- 
 fully jumbled, especially with buffalo bulls charg- 
 ing at her. “Go lead off your bull,’ was what 
 she supposed she had said. 
 
 Buffalo Bill climbed up on the back of Two 
 Horns. He looked as proud as haughty sultans 
 might on elephants. 
 
 “Go lose your head!” called Cynthia again, 
 waving her hand to shoo him away. 
 
 [171] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 He had never felt so insulted. Poor little 
 lonely fellow, nobody loved him anyhow; but 
 after trying to save a lady’s life it was hard luck 
 to earn such ingratitude! He poked Two Horns 
 in the special fashion which meant, “Turn 
 around.” Two Horns turned. He poked in the 
 code meaning, “ Gallop!’”? Two Horns galloped; 
 until in five minutes Cynthia saw them like mere 
 specks in the distance. “ That nice little fellow! ” 
 she thought gratefully. “ And how well I ran! 
 How well I climbed! Above all, how well I spoke 
 Chinese under difficulties! I’m improving.” 
 
 Which only goes to prove that boasters never 
 see themselves as others see them. For certainly 
 Buffalo Bill had his own private opinion about 
 her. He hardly knew whether to be enraged or 
 enchanted when she came a few days later to pre- 
 sent him with a little quilted coat, embarrassingly 
 new and blue. “It’s never been to the washing- 
 pool even once!” he gloated. For his only other 
 coat was patched with all shades of faded blues 
 left over from clothes of his uncles, his aunts, and 
 his cousins. 
 
 “What made her give it to me?” he asked 
 Aunt Ling. 
 
 Aunt Ling shrugged her shoulders: “ Who 
 
 [ 172 ] 
 
THE HEART OF BUFFALO BILL 
 
 knows about the hearts of these over-the-ocean 
 women? Soft! She told us that in this month 
 of February there is an over-the-ocean day when 
 people give love-gifts to one another. She 
 - brought love-gifts to each of us. See? One for 
 Pink Opal, one for Sister Pearl, one for little 
 Moonbeam, one for old Grandmother Ling.” 
 
 Buffalo Bill fingered the valentines curiously. 
 On the backs of each the Plain Gray Lady had 
 written a Bible verse in Chinese. But Buffalo 
 Bill could not read. Pink Opal could not read. 
 Little Moonbeam could not read. Nobody could. 
 
 “T got the best love-gift of all, didn’t I?” he 
 asked. 
 
 “Because you saved her life! She asked many 
 questions about you. Finally she said that the 
 heart of an orphan boy might get as five-jackets- 
 cold as his body! She wants to warm your 
 heart! ” 
 
 Buffalo Bill pretended to think this was all per- 
 fect nonsense. A young gentleman who has lived 
 ten winters and ten summers can warm his own 
 heart, thank you. He blustered around as if he 
 were greatly annoyed by this lady. But actually, 
 he was too flattered for words! Actually, he was 
 as vain as a peacock, as he pulled coat number 
 
 Aawregl 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 two on top of coat number one every morning. 
 But it was not until spring that he managed to 
 let any of his true feelings show through. And 
 even then I doubt whether Cynthia quite under- 
 stood him. 
 
 For she had been visiting Aunt Ling, and com- 
 ing home in the late afternoon had stopped to 
 gather violets. 
 
 “Oh, look!” she called to Buffalo Bill, her 
 face all pink and glowing. “Look! These grow 
 in America, too. I’m taking back a basketful to 
 decorate the school.”’ She buried her face in the 
 violets and drew long deep breaths. 
 
 Buffalo Bill was horrified. He pointed at the 
 sun and cried: “Honorably stop! The sun! 
 The sun!” 
 
 Cynthia sat back on her heels, astonished. 
 Was there something deadly poisonous in 
 Chinese violets? 
 
 The little boy still pointed at the sky: “ Not 
 safe! Not safe to pick flowers at sunset-time, 
 for that is the hour when all the evil spirits out- 
 of-doors are looking for some place to spend the 
 night. They crawl inside the flower-petals, and 
 if you take them into your house, alas! alas! what 
 illness and misfortune you will have!” 
 
 [ 174 ] 
 
THE HEART OF BUFFALO BILL 
 
 Cynthia preached a little sermon at him: “ The 
 God who made the violets made me, too. How 
 can I be afraid, silly boy?” 
 
 The silly boy looked skeptical, and when she 
 ~ walked off with her arms full of violets he dis- 
 covered that his five-jackets’-cold-heart was 
 nearly breaking with the pity of it. She was so 
 precious! And now she would die. What care- 
 less creatures women are! 
 
 Cynthia would have liked to stay behind and 
 convince the poor boy of her safety, but you will 
 remember that the city gates were closed at sun- 
 set-time and she did not want to be locked out, 
 of course. 
 
 Old Uncle Gate-Keeper warned her also when 
 he saw the violets. ‘‘ There will be trouble under 
 your rooftree during all this moon! ” he mourned, 
 wagging his poor old head with flattering con- 
 cern. 
 
 But about the thing which flattered Cynthia 
 the most she wrote home to America: “ And so, 
 you safe young flower-pickers, having introduced 
 you to Ling Po (I made up ‘ Buffalo Bill’ my- 
 self), I must now tell you the sequel. For yes- 
 terday Grandmother Gate-Woman came to tell 
 me that the smallest boy in China was inquiring 
 
 TAO 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 for me at the gate. Was I dead yet? What? 
 Not even down with a plague? Not the slightest 
 sickness? Well, well—unbelievable And no 
 other misfortunes of any kind? She said that he 
 went into such details and seemed to be thinking 
 up so many new possible ailments that she won- 
 dered if I would please trouble myself to come 
 down and relieve his anxiety. You may be sure 
 that I hurried to the gate, and there leaned Buf- 
 fallo Bill. Very gruff and rough and mannish. 
 “Here I am,’ I said, ‘altogether safe and sound 
 in spite of flowers picked at sunset-time.’ He 
 looked me up and down carefully. Then he said 
 *“Humph!’ whatever that may mean. After 
 which he poked a present into my hand, and took 
 to his heels and ran. It was a stone. Found in 
 ‘our’ field, I think, for there was earth on it. 
 Some people might not think a pebble much of a 
 present, but the curious thing about my pebble 
 is that it’s arrow-shaped: a bit wider at one end 
 with a dent in the middle of the widest part, and 
 a sharp point opposite. A heart, you see, a heart! 
 I don’t believe Buffalo Bill can be nearly as five- 
 jackets-cold as he used to be—not when he puts 
 sermons in stones. Certainly I never had a nicer 
 valentine.” 
 
 [ 176 ] 
 

 
 
 
 Here is Mr. Si. Also the Empress in the first silk dress ever 
 made in the history of mankind. If you act out the story you can 
 have a box-house with tip-up roofs for the palace, and a mulberry 
 tree (which can be a twig stuck in a spool) under which a Blue 
 Belle can stand, pretending to be the little homesick Empress. 
 When you reach the part which Silver Dew Drop played, you can 
 have another Blue Belle ride in a wheelbarrow (see Chapter II) 
 as she is trundled to her factory. You can prove how long twelve 
 hours are by moving the hands of a clock slowly around and 
 around and around the dial until a whole day has passed by— 
 how many minutes in twelve hours? Does fifteen cents seem 
 enough to pay a Chinese child for loss of sunlight, fresh air, and 
 play, and school? 
 
mim mist 
 UBAM <AGAD 
 
 “ Patience and a mulberry leaf will make a silk gown.” 
 
 “With coarse food to eat, water to drink, and the bended arm 
 as a pillow, happiness may still exist.” 
 
 “Unjustly got wealth is like snow sprinkled with hot water.” 
 
XIII 
 
 WITH THE COMPLIMENTS OF MR. SI 
 AND THE EMPRESS SI-LING-CHI 
 
 “To NECKTIE BoB AND My RIBBON-WEARING 
 SistERS—Goop Morninc! Have You 
 EATEN Your RICE? 
 
 “Tt is February as I write you, darlings, and 
 in America you are about to celebrate Silk Week, 
 and by the time you get my letter it will be April 
 here in China where we shall then be celebrating 
 Silk Week, too, with quaint ceremonies which I 
 long to see. So I’m writing you a story-letter to- 
 day, really three stories—one about Mr. Si, one 
 about the Empress, and one about my precious 
 Silver Dew Drop. 
 
 “Tt is only courteous, of course, to begin with 
 the Empress. She was about fourteen years old 
 when our story opens, and they say that she was 
 feeling very lonely, for she had recently been 
 married to the Emperor of China and was con- 
 sequently far from her own old home. I suppose 
 that she used to stand on the palace terrace and 
 
 [179 ] 
 

 
 A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 
 
 gaze off into the dim distance where the well- 
 known rooftree was. But one day as she gazed 
 she looked up into a tree and was famous ever 
 afterward. Personally I have looked up into 
 many a Chinese tree myself, and have never yet 
 grown famous. But of course it had to be a 
 special Tree With Mr. Si In It. She saw it first! 
 She saw it 2,640 years before Christ was born. 
 
 “Little Mr. Si went fast asleep when she first 
 saw him. He was very small, about three inches 
 long and as big around as your thumb. He 
 owned fully a hundred little feet with which he 
 could crawl to his home at the top of a mulberry- 
 tree, where all he ever did was to munch mul- 
 berry-leaves from morning till night. Eat. Eat. 
 Eat. No time off for playing or even for sleep- 
 ing, although once in every seven days he had to 
 change his clothes. But this was no trouble at 
 all—he simply shuffled off the old gray suit and 
 went right on eating, for his new suit grew on 
 his back right under the old one. Did you ever 
 hear of anything so economical? 
 
 “But while the Empress Si-Ling-Chi was 
 watching him he suddenly wanted to stop eating. 
 And he did stop! He also wanted to go to sleep. 
 And he did sleep! But first of all he had to make 
 
 [180 ] 
 

 
 COMPLIMENTS OF THE EMPRESS 
 
 his bed. Sleeping in treetops is risky business, 
 so he got a little rope and lashed his bed to a 
 certain quiet twig. But you will be as astonished 
 as the Empress to hear that he found the rope in 
 - lus mouth, This is how he found it: He threw 
 out a tiny thread from each side of his head, and 
 since they were made of a jellylike fluid they 
 hardened as soon as they struck the air. He fast- 
 ened them to the twig; then by slowly tossing his 
 head right and left he spun the two threads in 
 one, making his rope longer and longer, and 
 stronger and stronger. After which he pro- 
 ceeded to make his bed. The Empress could 
 hardly believe her eyes when she saw that he 
 found his bedclothes in his mouth, too! Again 
 he slowly moved his head back and forth, while 
 soft silky thread came from the corners of his 
 mouth; and from these silken strands he wove a 
 coverlet round and round his body. The threads 
 glued themselves to other threads, and hardened 
 on the outside like a piece of parchment. Then 
 he went to sleep. 
 
 “The Empress had never envied any one quite 
 so deeply: ‘I am a very great lady, but even my 
 costliest jackets and trousers do not glisten like 
 Mr. Si’s soft bedclothes.’ 
 
 [181] 
 

 
 A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 
 
 “You may be sure that she looked around to 
 see if he had any relatives in the other mulberry- 
 trees. She discovered hundreds of brothers, each 
 nibbling tender green mulberry-leaves in a per- 
 fect frenzy. Never was there a family more 
 comical: they would eat a few days, then sleep 
 for two days; wake up, eat, sleep another two 
 days. Four times they waked; and before their 
 fifth sleep they made their beds exactly as their 
 brother had done. 
 
 “The Empress decided not to wait until their 
 fifth awakening. She carried a few of the family 
 into the palace, broke open the cradle-beds and 
 gently began to wind off the shimmering bed- 
 clothes. ‘I will make myself a jacket from this! ’ 
 she cried. It was the first silk dress ever made. 
 In 2,640 B. C.! 
 
 “ The court ladies were simply green with envy 
 until they, too, had coats and trousers made of 
 silk. The court gentlemen began to beg for silk 
 clothes too. Silk became so popular that the 
 Emperor made an edict that only those in the 
 palace might wear silk, for there is no use in 
 being Emperor unless you can have something 
 nobody else has! Naturally the Empress became 
 very popular, she was called Si-Ling-Chi, the 
 
 [ 182 ] 
 
& 
 
 COMPLIMENTS OF THE EMPRESS 
 
 “Goddess of the Silkworm,’ and every year in 
 April there is a special feast in honor of her, a 
 feast which has been held for four thousand 
 years, you little brand new Americans! 
 
 “The story goes that for two thousand years 
 the Chinese emperors kept the secret of how to 
 make silk, but about the year 350 B. C. a certain 
 prince of India married a certain Chinese prin- 
 cess. He carried her off to India with him, via 
 the caravan route, and that bright little bride 
 hid in her sandals and in her head-dress the eggs. 
 of the silkworm and the seeds of the mulberry- 
 tree; so that before long they had silk in India, 
 too. History becomes quite fascinating when 
 you know that Alexander the Great tried his best 
 to learn the secret of silk-making; and Julius 
 Cesar himself ordered silks from China for his 
 Roman togas. And now you wear silk as a 
 matter of course, with never a thought of Si or 
 Si-Ling-Chi or even of Miss Silver Dew Drop. 
 Especially Silver Dew Drop, bless her little 
 Chinese heart! 
 
 “For the silk-story is still going on in China 
 today, and Dew Drop has written many chapters 
 of it with years of very hard work. First here 
 in our City of Clouds and later in a Shanghai 
 
 [ 183 J 
 
ee 
 
 A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 re re — 
 
 factory. At home she learned to reel the silk 
 from Mr. Si by hand. She placed his cocoon in 
 a basin of hot water to soften the gummy threads 
 which had hardened into a parchment shell. 
 Then she caught together the ends of four or five 
 other cocoons and reeled them off, thus making a_ 
 strand of ‘raw’ silk. Perhaps you will under- 
 stand why good silk is so expensive when I tell 
 you that it takes 3,000 silkworms to spin one 
 pound of this raw silk to make a single dress! 
 
 “ But even yet you do not realize the full cost 
 of your neckties, sashes, and hair-ribbons, for 
 half of that cost was paid for you by Silver Dew 
 Drop in her Shanghai factory. My Plain Gray 
 Lady tells me that the little girl was a perfect 
 beauty when she left town, soft cheeks like yel- 
 low tea-rose petals with the pink just showing 
 through, little slender hands, and a most conta- 
 gious giggle. For three months she was a Blue 
 Belle in our school, long before I came to China 
 of course. Her parents had died, and she was 
 very much unloved and unwanted in her grand- 
 parents’ home. Her brother worked on a river- 
 boat—Celestial Obedience is his name (the boy 
 who stole Bob’s star), and one day he brought 
 home a fabulous story about the wealth a girl 
 
 [ 184 | 
 
COMPLIMENTS OF THE EMPRESS 
 
 could earn in the silk factories of Shanghai. Just 
 reeling silk, exactly as she did at home. The 
 child ran away from home, hid in his boat, and 
 went to Shanghai. 
 
 “Immediately her life became one continuously 
 cruel Turkish bath! For twelve endless hours 
 every day she stood bending over basins full of 
 boiling water where the cocoons were soaking. 
 All the pink tea-rose color faded from her 
 little yellow cheeks as the perspiration dripped, 
 dripped, dripped down her face. The air was 
 only steam, of course, not at all the proper stuff 
 to breath all day, since it had to be kept at 118° 
 for the sake of the silkworms. For the sake of 
 worms! For the sake of new sashes and neckties 
 and ribbons! 
 
 “ But nothing whatever done for the sake of 
 little Silver Dew Drop in her wee bound feet! 
 Hot all day, freezing all night. She says thou- 
 sands of little girls just like herself are trundled 
 through the Shanghai streets at daybreak on 
 their way to the silk-mills. Their golden lilies 
 are too small for them to walk! ‘I got sick,’ she 
 said to me, ‘here!’ and she thumped her little 
 chest. ‘I got sick. I coughed and coughed and 
 coughed. By that time I was in the room with 
 
 [185 ] 
 

 
 A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 
 
 the spindles. I stood in a little alley of flying 
 spindles. I had to fly too—fly here and fly there 
 to watch for broken threads. Well, I had to be 
 all eyes. But by and by I got too tired to be 
 eyes. I got stupid. Clumsy. They didn’t want 
 me any more.’ 
 
 “* But what did you do for a living then?’ I 
 asked. 
 
 “* Oh, I stood on a corner and begged. Some- 
 times I would get a penny a day. Sometimes 
 four or five. Inthe factory I earned fifteen cents 
 a day, so then I felt poor. I watched the river- 
 boats for Celestial Obedience. Finally he came. 
 He smuggled me back. But nobody wanted me 
 under my family rooftree. I was a little “ lose- 
 money-person.” But the Honorable Teacher 
 wanted me! She gets milk for me to drink. She 
 makes me sleep in the open air. She fitted up the 
 little balcony on Grandmother Gate-Woman’s 
 lodge especially for me to sleep on all day long. 
 I’m going to get well! I’m going to be a person 
 like Grandmother Gate-Woman, an inviter!’ 
 
 “The other day in our school prayer-meeting 
 Silver Dew Drop stood up and said: ‘ I’ve been 
 like a silkworm all my life, bound fast in a cocoon 
 of sin which I’ve spun round and round myself. 
 
 [ 186 ] 
 
COMPLIMENTS OF THE EMPRESS 
 
 Then I went to sleep. I slept five times, I guess! 
 And nobody ever tried to make anything lovely 
 out of me, they just let me harden. But all of a 
 sudden I know there’s something with wings in 
 me, and I’m starting to break through the cocoon. 
 I’m going to be God’s little moth. Dm the hap- 
 piest girl in China!’ 
 
 “My dear Bob, and you my little silk-wearing 
 sisters, I can’t help wondering if you won’t save 
 your dimes and nickels and quarters for this 
 little Blue Belle of ours. One dollar will keep her 
 in school one month. There’s an old Chinese 
 proverb which says ‘ Patience and a mulberry- 
 leaf will make a silk dress,’ but I have a better 
 proverb than that even if it is only two minutes 
 old: ‘ Patience and a dollar will make a Christian 
 scholar.’ How about it? 
 
 “Your devoted sister, Cyn.” 
 
 [ 187] 
 
4 
 
 vt By Sey eh Ss 
 . ' 
 
 
 

 
 To illustrate the lane that was only pig-wide you will, of course, 
 want two Chinese box-houses (see Chapter XI) with a pink pig 
 exactly broad enough to reach from wall to wall, with Cynthia 
 standing on one side and the polite Chinese gentleman on the 
 other. Pink cardboard, cut double, will make an excellent pig; 
 paste the two sides of the backs and heads together; then spread 
 the legs apart so that he can stand. Ordinary Chinese pigs are 
 quite brown and filthy from wallowing in the mud and the sewers 
 all day long; so the pinkness of the Wangs’ “ good-to-love” pig 
 was a wonderful advertisement to the whole street that Sunday 
 was quite different from Saturday and Monday. 
 
mM Mi ria ttt 
 LAT AL Th <> 7 te 
 
 “When one is eating one’s own, one eats to repletion; when 
 one is eating another’s, one eats until the tears run.” 
 
 “ Better slight a guest than starve him.” 
 
 “ Better be civil to the kitchen god than to the god of the inner 
 sanctum.” 
 
XIV 
 
 eee Ge LEA LeWAS AaV ACUUM 
 CLEANER 
 
 At first Cynthia called him the Pig That Was 
 A Carpet Sweeper; but the more she thought 
 about it, the more she knew that this would be 
 most incorrect, since there was really not a sign 
 of a carpet in the entire Wang house. Neither 
 did it seem altogether correct to call him a Va- 
 cuum Cleaner, for surely the word vacuum means 
 “ nothing there’: and a great deal WAS there! 
 A very great deal, at first. But after the pig had 
 had time to run his grunter over the floor not a 
 core nor a peel nor a paring was left: he had 
 certainly left a vacuum. 
 
 “ He ought to be patented!” she confided to 
 the Plain Gray Lady. “ Imagine a cleaner that 
 needs no electric attachment to make him run! 
 No difficult pushing or shoving by hand! No 
 saying, ‘Oh, dear, I overlooked a crumb under 
 the table!’ Of his own accord the pig spies all 
 the crumbs and grease-spots, and cheerfully sucks 
 them in. His works never clog. His parts never 
 
 [191] 
 

 
 A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 need oiling. Just turn him loose, and he does the 
 rest!) And his trade-mark ought to be, ° Feeds 
 while it cleans.’ Now I know why the Chinese 
 character for home is a roof with a pig under it! ” 
 
 Cynthia met him first on her way to eat “ late 
 rice” with the Wangs. She met him while she 
 was stepping gingerly through the mud of New 
 Green Pea Lane. If the streets of the town were 
 very narrow, the lanes were narrower still. In- 
 deed, this lane was exactly pig-wide! [or his 
 nice little snout nuzzled against the house wall 
 on one side and his ridiculous curly-queue tail 
 tickled the house wall on the other wall. He had 
 made himself into a gate which nobody could 
 pass. 
 
 “ Are you a Chinese Balaam’s ass, dear Pig?” 
 asked Cynthia addressing him politely, wonder- 
 ing if this could be a sign for her to turn around 
 and go home, for you will remember the Bible 
 story of how Balaam’s ass did everything possi- 
 ble to block Balaam from making a certain wrong 
 journey. 
 
 Cynthia’s pig grunted. 
 
 Cynthia had had so many troubles poll-parrot- 
 ing human Chinese that pig Chinese was doubly 
 impossible to translate. “Say it again!” she 
 
 [192] 
 
THE PIG THAT WAS A VACUUM CLEANER 
 
 begged, clapping her hands, not because she ex- 
 pected an answer of course, but in the hope that 
 the pig might move around to see who dared to 
 disturb this new lane-measuring business of his; 
 ‘the minute he moved, she expected to dash quickly 
 past him. 
 
 But there never was a pig less curious. He 
 felt no least desire to see the newcomer. Cyn- 
 thia in her best dress dared not go any nearer; 
 she stood poised on a big muddy cobblestone won- 
 dering what in the world to do. And then, from 
 the other direction, came a knight to the rescue; 
 a very grand knight in a long purple satin coat 
 covered with gold dragons. He looked at the pig. 
 Then he looked at the lady. He bowed: “ For- 
 give me, Honorable Sister, but this is the pig of 
 the Wangs. He is therefore a Christian pig. 
 The new doctrine especially teaches golden deeds. 
 He will surely get out of the way if you only ask 
 him.” 
 
 “T have asked him,” Cynthia bowed, “and he 
 will not budge.” 
 
 “Forgive me!” sighed the Purple Knight. 
 “Forgive me. Itis very unfitting that he should 
 block the Honorable Sister’s way.” He closed 
 his fan and flicked the pig on the back smartly: 
 
 [ 193 ] 
 

 
 A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 ‘““Speedily, speedily! For the Honorable Sister 
 open a very wide way.” 
 
 Heathen or Christian, no Chinese pig could re- 
 sist such a hint. He moved. Cynthia dashed to 
 the cobblestone where the Purple Knight had 
 stood, and the Purple Knight hurried to the cob- 
 blestone where Cynthia had stood. So far, so 
 good! They bowed very solemnly to each other 
 over the pig’s back, and Cynthia had supposed 
 this would be the end of the story. But there is 
 never an end to any story in a Chinese walled 
 city. 
 
 For you will remember that she was on her 
 way to eat supper with the Wangs. Mr. Wang 
 had recently become a “ worshiping-God-man ” 
 and had finally so influenced his old mother that 
 Grandma Wang wanted to have a talk with the 
 new Shepherdess. She had already had many 
 talks with the Plain Gray Lady, but she felt that 
 two missionaries would be none too many to ex- 
 plain all the puzzling questions she had in mind. 
 Cynthia was flattered to be asked, but a little 
 nervous also, for so many things were hard to 
 explain in new Chinese, and then of course there 
 was the chop-stick side of dining out. Unless 
 you have tried it you can have no idea what a 
 
 [ 194 ] 
 
THE PIG THAT WAS A VACUUM CLEANER 
 
 risky business it is to have to carry every morsel 
 of food all the way from the table to your lips 
 between two sticks as slippery as blunt knitting- 
 needles! 
 
 There was also a tremendous amount of bow- 
 ing to be done before it was proper to be seated 
 at the high square table. Tea was served in little 
 cups which had no handles. Cynthia knew 
 enough to pick up her cup with both hands and to 
 sip the tea noisily enough to prove how much she 
 enjoyed it. In the center of the table was a dish 
 with a dozen little separate partitions, filled with 
 walnuts, salted peanuts, candy, dried pumpkin- 
 seeds, melon-seeds, and other curious things im- 
 possible to name. Grandmother Wang used her 
 fingers to serve Cynthia, giving her something 
 from each of the little compartments. Presently 
 the table was wiped off and a number of bowls 
 were brought in full of things to eat which Cyn- 
 thia was obliged to sample politely. There was 
 pork fried in oil, and cabbage dumpling flavored 
 with garlic, and of course there was rice, there 
 also were meat balls swimming in gravy, and 
 vegetables. The Wangs were evidently anxious 
 to make a very good impression on this new 
 Shepherdess! But the thing that made the real 
 
 [ 195 ] 
 

 
 A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 
 
 impression was Grandmother Wang’s habit of 
 serving everything to those at the table with her 
 own chop-sticks. One minute she would be dip- 
 ping them into her own bowl and carrying some- 
 thing to her lips, the next minute—between bites 
 —she would be serving Cynthia. It was the 
 height of politeness, from hostess to guest! 
 Cynthia wondered if this, too, was a four-thou- 
 sand-year-old custom in China. 
 
 It was in the midst of the meal that Cynthia 
 saw Grandma Wang sweep some vegetables on 
 the floor. Presently the oldest Aunt Wang threw 
 some tough seeds on the floor. A very little 
 Wang dropped half a cabbage dumpling by mis- 
 take. Cynthia tried not to notice what a number 
 of things were going floorward, and then she no- 
 ticed the pig. Her pig! 
 
 “Te can’t be Balaam’s ass,” she smiled. 
 “He’s more like Mary’s little lamb; my! won’t 
 the Wangs laugh and play when they find him 
 here at their dinner-party! ” 
 
 But not a Wang seemed astonished. Not even — 
 when the pig ran his snuffling little grunter all 
 over the floor and sucked in the cores, the peel- 
 ings, the droppings, the crumbs. It dawned on 
 Cynthia at last that he did this vacuum-cleaning 
 
 [ 196 ] 
 

 
 THE PIG THAT WAS A VACUUM CLEANER 
 
 after every meal. “ He ought to be patented! ” 
 she smiled. 
 
 And then came the questions. Dozens of them. 
 For Grandmother Wang was frankly worried 
 about being a Christian. She said that she had 
 burned her idols. ‘“‘I burned them but I said, 
 “May you be blessed and return to heaven in 
 peace.’ Was that all right? ” 
 
 Cynthia was afraid not. 
 
 The oldest Aunt Wang added: “ But she didn’t 
 burn the kitchen god. Surely it’s best to keep it 
 pasted over the kitchen-stove, isn’t it?” 
 
 Cynthia was afraid not! “Take me out and 
 let me see the kitchen,” she asked. They led her 
 there, and she looked up at the little paper idol 
 wondering why he seemed so necessary. 
 
 “‘ Haven't you really ever heard the story about 
 him?” asked Grandmother Wang, surprised. 
 “He was once a man named Chang. He grew 
 tired of his wife although she was a very good 
 woman, so he put her out of the house and mar- 
 ried somebody who turned out to be just as bad 
 as his other wife had been good. In fact she was 
 so unpleasant that he had to leave home! Mean- 
 while his poor first wife, when cast outdoors, had 
 had to wander sadly all over the countryside, 
 
 [197 ] 
 
er 
 
 A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 ee rere rere —————————e 
 
 until suddenly she saw some shining lumps on 
 the ground. She picked as many as she could 
 carry and soon made her home with a lonely 
 old woman; the shining lumps were pure gold! 
 Well, one day along came a very miserable 
 beggar. She knew at once that it was her hus- 
 band, but he did not recognize her until she set 
 before him a bowl of delicious noodle soup made 
 as only she could make it, for she knew it was 
 his favorite soup. Just then a large brass hair- 
 pin fell from her hair, and he saw that it was one 
 which he had given his wife. He was so over- 
 come with shame to think of her serving him so 
 kindly when he had treated her so badly that he 
 fainted and fell into the fire. He went up in 
 smoke, and ever since then he’s been worshiped 
 as the kitchen god. Once a year he’s burned, 
 with plenty of spirit money, so that he will give 
 a good report of us in the upper air. Then we 
 paste up a new god over the stove. It seems to 
 me that we would hardly dare to eat if he wasn’t 
 out here to guard the rice-bowls. But the other 
 Shepherdess says this is wrong, that a Christian 
 cannot serve two gods. What is your honorable 
 opinion? ” 
 
 I do not need to tell you Cynthia’s answer! 
 
 [ 198 ] 
 
THE PIG THAT WAS A VACUUM CLEANER 
 
 The old lady wagged her head regretfully: 
 “Well, I gave up the other gods quite easily, so 
 now I must give up this one, too. Golden Virtue, 
 take him down! ” 
 
 Golden Virtue took him down. She trembled 
 like a leaf. 
 
 “Tear him up! ” ordered Grandmother Wang. 
 
 “Oh, I don’t dare!” wailed Golden Virtue. 
 She trembled like two leaves! 
 
 “Tear him up!” ordered the old lady ear- 
 nestly. 
 
 Golden Virtue tore him up. But she trembled 
 like a whole aspen-tree! She trembled so much 
 that two of the pieces of paper fluttered to the 
 ground, and would you believe it? before she 
 could pick them up the Pig Who Was A Vacuum 
 Cleaner sucked them into his mouth. Cynthia 
 thinks he liked the taste of the paste. 
 
 “ Now he will have to be a heathen pig!”’ said 
 little Fragrant Love, her hands clasped excitedly 
 over her stomach. 
 
 “Will he?” asked Grandmother Wang anx- 
 iously,. 
 
 “No! ” said Cynthia, settling that hard theo- 
 logical question at once. “For the God who 
 made you and me made the pig also.” 
 
 [199 ] 
 

 
 A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 
 
 “T am glad of that,” said Grandmother Wang. 
 But Fragrant Love and Golden Virtue decided to 
 keep an eye on the pig. It was their firm convic- 
 tion that in the course of time he would surely 
 die. A pig who had eaten a kitchen god! Mercy 
 on us! 
 
 Before Cynthia went home she made a little 
 calendar of Christian Sabbaths to be pasted on 
 the wall, so that Sunday could come regularly to 
 New Green Pea Lane. And every time Fragrant 
 Love would check off a Sunday date she would 
 look at the pig. 
 
 “ Vou see, he’s a Christian pig,” she explained 
 to her little heathen playmates. 
 
 “Ts he? Why?” they asked. 
 
 “ Well, he didn’t die from eating an idol. And 
 besides, haven’t you ever noticed how we clean 
 him up when Sundays come around? We 
 thought perhaps we ought to. Golden Virtue 
 does it one week, and I do it the next.” 
 
 It was quite an advertisement to have a Sun- 
 day pig on New Green Pea Lane! Cynthia said 
 maybe that is why the Chinese written character 
 for home is a roof with a pig under. 
 
 [ 200 ] 
 
 ee i 
 
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 ce aia 
 
 It is possible to make a really gorgeous dragon from six sheets 
 of red tissue paper, three sheets for each side of the body. Paste 
 the paper end to end, neatly overlapping about a quarter of an 
 inch. Experiment with a newspaper pattern before attempting 
 to cut out the dragons from two th cknesses of the tissue paper. 
 Paste these two dragons together around the margins only, so 
 that the inside can fill with air. A hoop of pasteboard glued in 
 the mouth will let the air in more easily. Paste white eyeballs 
 and teeth in place, and paint black fins and fangs and scales in 
 proper places; an orange tissue paper tongue emerging from the 
 jaws will be effective. 
 
tt 
 
 rm fiat 
 WBA TAO AD 
 
 “In shallow water, dragons become the joke of shrimps.” 
 “It’s no use calling the tiger to chase away the dog.” 
 
 “One hill cannot shelter two tigers.” 
 
XV 
 
 A NEW ST. GEORGE BUT A VERY 
 OLD DRAGON 
 
 You cannot blame Cynthia for having some 
 trouble in remembering the Chinese names of her 
 Blue Belles apart when Duoi-di, Kiang-di, Liang- 
 di, Hi-di, and Pau-di each meant “ Bring 
 Brother,” showing how disappointed their sepa- 
 rate parents had been when each particular new 
 baby had been born a girl! Cynthia was always 
 saying one name when she meant another, which 
 the Blue Belles themselves considered quite a 
 joke, although their Shepherdess seemed so dis- 
 tressed each time it happened. It was because of 
 this difficulty that she always thought of Hi-di as 
 “ Goody-Two-Shoes” and of the little Duoi-di 
 as “ George.” 
 
 No name could have fitted Duoi-di better, be- 
 cause if there was anything to be done in school 
 this particular Bring Brother wanted to do it! 
 Pencils to be sharpened? Errands to be run? 
 Rooms to be dusted? Buttons to be sewed on? 
 It was the easiest thing in the world to “ leave it 
 
 [ 203 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 to George,” to “ let George do it.” And then, too, 
 George always told the truth. Instantly! Flatly! 
 Outrightly! No matter what the peril to herself! 
 
 “ Sometimes, George,” Cynthia said, “you 
 make me wonder whether there isn’t a cherry- 
 tree growing in your courtyard with a hatchet at 
 the foot of it.” 
 
 George, of course, looked greatly puzzled. 
 What could the dear Shepherdess mean? Or was 
 she trying to say one thing and saying another? 
 “A cherry-tree? A hatchet?” George repeated 
 in a worried sort of fashion. “ No, Shepherdess! 
 But we have a little dwarf pine and a hammer. 
 Would those do? ” 
 
 You can see for yourself that George was a 
 darling, and the last thing Cynthia expected to 
 do was to offer the dear child to a dangerous 
 dragon. And yet she did. She did! 
 
 _ It began one day in the sewing class when 
 George had been in school only five months and 
 was still a very green Blue Belle. Cynthia no- 
 ticed that for once the busy George who liked to 
 do everything was actually doing nothing. Just 
 sitting! With folded hands! 
 
 “Are you sick today?” Cynthia whispered 
 tenderly. 
 
 [ 204 ] 
 
ST. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON 
 
 George bobbed her polite little bow: “ Excuse 
 me, Shepherdess, I am well.” 
 
 *“ But you aren’t sewing? ” 
 
 George looked frightened: “‘ But do I dare, to- 
 . day? For today the dragon lifts his head; do I 
 dare to touch a needle?” 
 
 Cynthia wondered if she had heard correctly: 
 * Dare not use a needle, Duoi-di? ” 
 
 The eyes of George looked deep with fears, the 
 voice of George fell to a ghostly whisper: “ To- 
 day the dragon lifts his head, and if I used a 
 needle I might stick it-into his eyes. Oh, Shep- 
 herdess, surely none of us should sew today! ” 
 
 Instantly the entire class dropped needles and 
 sewing in a sudden panic! For they were all 
 first-year students, and still very green. But 
 Cynthia was green, too. She took her greenness 
 to the Plain Gray Lady: “ What am I going to 
 do? My class has gone on strike! A regular 
 mutiny, not one of them will sew, and it’s all on 
 account of a dragon. Have we a dragon in our 
 midst? ” 
 
 “We have!” sighed the Plain Gray Lady. 
 “ He lives in great palaces under the earth, when 
 he rolls over in bed there’s an earthquake, 
 when it rains it’s the tears of the dragon. Utter 
 
 [ 205 ] 
 

 
 A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 
 
 belief in him has kept the conservative Chinese 
 from mining their coal and their iron. What? 
 Tickle the dragon’s ribs unceremoniously? They 
 would all be gobbled up exactly as the dragon 
 gobbles up the sun every evening of his life! For 
 I suppose you’ve seen the old-fashioned Chinese 
 flag with its picture of the dragon swallowing the 
 sun, haven’t you? Well, in such behind-the-times 
 cities as this the people still cling to their old 
 superstitions, and today is the day when the 
 Chinese say the dragon lifts his head? Which 
 means in plain English that spring has come. 
 There’ll be a dragon parade in the streets to- 
 night; you’ll be amazed at the gorgeous sight. 
 Meanwhile suppose I go in and tell a story to 
 those little strikers of yours, a well-known Chi- 
 nese version of our own old English myth about 
 Saint George and the dragon. Come along and 
 listen.” 
 
 The Blue Belles were looking very rebellious 
 and decidedly startled. Were the Shepherdesses 
 going to force them to sew? But when they 
 found that it was to be a story they sat down 
 meekly and listened, for who does not love a fairy 
 tale? 
 
 “Once upon a time,” the Plain Gray Lady 
 
 [ 206 ] 
 
ST. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON 
 
 began, “ there was a terrible dragon. He snorted 
 red fire from his nostrils and whipped up the 
 whole landscape with the lashing of his giant 
 tail.” 
 
 The Blue Belles shivered with delight. Ah, 
 this was the way to tell legends! So that cold 
 chills ran up and down backbones. . . 
 
 “And the only thing that that dragon would 
 eat was a little girl. One at a time he gobbled 
 them: little girls under thirteen, juicy and ten- 
 der! But of course it kept the people busy feed- 
 ing him with the little daughters of criminals, 
 slaves, and bondservants until the supply of these 
 ran out. There wasn’t oneleft. Not one. What 
 to do then? ” 
 
 More shivering by the Blue Belles. Cynthia 
 could fairly read in their eyes the thoughts in 
 their little minds: “ O-oh, I’m under thirteen 
 years old myself! O-oh! ” 
 
 “Now there was in that country a great tar- 
 tai, the most important official to be found. A 
 very pompous gentleman he was, with palaces 
 and serving men and ten thousand soldiers, at the 
 very least. Also he had six daughters, and the 
 sixth little daughter said to herself: ‘I’m just 
 Number Six. They’ve never even troubled to 
 
 [ 207 ] 
 

 
 A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 give meaname. I’m so unwanted and so unim- 
 portant a child that perhaps it’s for me to do 
 something about this dragon!’ You see, she 
 was the kind of girl who liked to do things.” 
 (George looked Cynthia in the eye!) “So that 
 brave little heroine asked for a dog, she asked for 
 a sword, she asked for plenty of boiled rice. 
 Then with the sword in her right hand and the 
 bowl in her left, she led the dog toward the 
 dragon’s cavern. Just one little girl, mind you, 
 in little blue-cotton trousers and a little blue- 
 cotton jacket, her pigtail dangling down her 
 back.” 
 
 “Just like me,” giggled Goody Two Shoes, 
 nervously. 
 
 “And me,” added George. 
 
 “Exactly,” agreed the Plain = Gray Cag 
 “ Well, when little Miss Number Six got to the 
 cavern she mixed the great mound of rice with 
 plenty of honey, and out crawled the dragon 
 from his cave licking his horrible pink tongue all 
 over his lips getting ready to enjoy the feast, 
 while his horrible tail lashed down trees and 
 bushes and even a pagoda. But while he was 
 swallowing the rice, up dashed the dog and set 
 his sharp teeth into the dragon’s neck; and while 
 
 [ 208 ] 
 
ST. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON 
 
 the dog was chewing this neck, up dashed little 
 Miss Number Six with her sharp sword and 
 hacked at the dragon’s tail from behind until he 
 died! ‘Then the people in that country stood 
 around and marveled. ‘Just a dragon,’ they 
 cried, ‘just tails and scales! We ought to have 
 gotten rid of him ourselves long ago. Three 
 cheers for the brave little maiden who did this 
 good deed!’ And I do not need to tell you, my 
 dears, that her story has been told in China from 
 that day to this.” 
 
 The Blue Belles nodded. They began to put 
 two and two together: Were all dragons just tails 
 and scales? Killable? 
 
 The Plain Gray Lady said they were even less 
 than that! “ They are just thoughts, that’s all 
 dragons have ever been! There’s the thought- 
 dragon called Superstition, for instance. He 
 makes you think the air is full of evil spirits when 
 there isn’t such a thing in all God’s world. He 
 makes you afraid to use your needles on a day 
 that’s exactly like any other day God gives you, 
 all because a real dragon underneath the world 
 is supposed to be lifting his head. Haven’t I told 
 you who made the sky and the earth and the 
 sea and the rocks underneath us? The great 
 
 [ 209 ] 
 

 
 A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 
 
 Lord God made every inch of the earth, every 
 drop of the sea, every speck of the air. He made 
 it for you to play with! There is nothing to fear 
 anywhere. And the reason I have opened the 
 doors of my school is because I want every one of 
 you to go out some day to slay that old Supersti- 
 tion-dragon.” 
 
 The hour was over. The Blue Bells scampered 
 away. But George did not scamper. Very 
 thoughtfully she hunted up Amazing Grace to 
 ask permission to go home to visit her family. 
 Since George could not tell a lie she simply said 
 impressively that it was the most important, the 
 most solemn, and the most secret occasion of her 
 whole life; she really must be home for it! Since 
 George lived within the city walls Amazing Grace 
 gave her consent; and nobody gave a single 
 thought to George, because the dragon proces- 
 sion was such a thrilling sight to see. 
 
 Twenty men in gray were that dragon’s forty 
 legs, so inconspicuous themselves that the gor- 
 geous gold-and-scarlet beast seemed to be spraw- 
 ling slowly through the air with its scaly, horned, 
 and corrugated sides. It wriggled and squirmed 
 and twisted and writhed in the most ferocious 
 fashion as the wind rushed through its empty 
 
 [ 210 ] 
 

 
 ST. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON 
 
 paper body; and every few yards it turned its 
 awful fiery head, opened wide its terrible jaws, 
 and belched forth a hideous yelp, made of course 
 by the twenty men in gray below it. Swarms of 
 people thronged the streets, shouting and shoot- 
 ing off firecrackers, chanting all sorts of prayers 
 and petitions, and acting truly frenzied in certain 
 communities; at other times the procession was 
 equally gorgeous to see but not quite so wild. 
 “This is China! Heathen China!” sighed 
 Cynthia, and then—while she was looking—she 
 saw that far down the street the dragon had sud- 
 denly become one burning blazing mass. One 
 moment, all flames; the next moment, a mere 
 black paper shell; after which, as the wind blew 
 on that shell—nothingness! Just twenty men in 
 gray with twenty poles upholding—nothingness. 
 “What’s happened?” “Who did this?” 
 “Tt’s the vengeance of the dragon!” “ Calam- 
 ity!’ “Alas! Alas!” ‘‘ Who did this?” rip- 
 pled from mouth to mouth and from street to 
 street. There were moans and groans. There 
 were jeers and sneers. There was much confu- 
 sion. And all this time on top of a certain gate- 
 post perched a certain girl in blue, with her heart 
 beating very fast and her hands—well! look at 
 
 [211 ] 
 
i EN 
 
 A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 a eee 
 
 her hands, will you? Blistered as if by fire. 
 Scorched—blackened—aching. 
 
 “ow am I ever going to get down off this 
 high perch with my hands this way?” she cried, 
 with tears of pain in her eyes. 
 
 But a hundred arms seemed to reach up toward 
 her: “ She did it! She did it! She’s had a torch 
 of faggots burning in her hands all evening, 
 hasn’t she?” 
 
 web hatss SO. 
 
 “T saw her stretch out her torch to touch the 
 dragon’s tail!” 
 
 “Bring her down! Whip her! Flog her! 
 Crazy child!” 
 
 And the little girl who had wondered how she 
 was ever going to get down, found a hundred 
 arms reaching up to get her. They dragged her 
 down crossly, rudely, roughly; life would have 
 gone hard with her that night if she had not given 
 a series of curious clucks: “ Ka-ch’k! Ka-ch’k! 
 —Come, Fierce Dog!” 
 
 Come he did! With such yapping and yelping 
 and growling and snapping and biting that peo- 
 ple were hopping ever-which-way, nursing their 
 shins and their legs wherever his dreadful teeth 
 or his dreadful claws had dug. Quietly the girl 
 
 [ 212 ] 
 
ST. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON 
 
 ran off through the crowd; quietly she ran into 
 empty lanes; quietly she found the queer crooked 
 alleys which finally brought her to Grandmother 
 Gate-Woman’s gate. She knocked and knocked. 
 
 Then up to Cynthia’s door she ran. She 
 opened it, fell inside, and lay flat on the floor. 
 
 “ George!” cried Cynthia, startled. 
 
 She picked up the child. Such a limp Blue 
 Belle, with such burned hands! She called the 
 Plain Gray Lady. They dressed the burns with 
 soothing ointment, they bandaged them. George 
 opened her eyes. “No good, stupid me!” she 
 sighed drearily. “ Got frightened. Called Fierce 
 Dog too soon. Never said Jesus could save. 
 Never said Dragon couldn’t. Sorry. Sorry. 
 No good!” And she fainted again. 
 
 Cynthia looked at the Plain Gray Lady. “ Just 
 what does all this mean, anyhow?” she asked. 
 
 “T think it means a new Saint George but a 
 very old dragon,” said the Plain Gray Lady 
 softly, her eyes shining as she kissed the little 
 bandaged hands with real reverence. “ And now 
 you see, Cynthia, what stuff Chinese girls are 
 made of!” 
 
 The next morning at prayers the Plain Gray 
 Lady read a wonderful verse written by Saint 
 
 [ 213 ] 
 

 
 A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 
 
 Paul: “ I bear in my body the marks of the Lord 
 Jesus.’ But only Cynthia, Amazing Grace, and 
 George understood why she read it. And George 
 felt very humble: “Oh, I bungled things,” she 
 sighed for the forty ’leventh time, “ I aah t once 
 mention the Saviour.” 
 
 But possibly you realize that her silence was a 
 good thing, for if it had become known in town 
 that a little Christian scholar had dared to spoil 
 a heathen festival, I think that the Heavenly 
 Education-Instilling School would have been far 
 from popular. 
 
 [ 214 ] 
 

 
 By the time you finish this book you will have discovered that 
 a box can make anything from a house to a wheelbarrow. This 
 time it will make a fine table if you choose a bright red squarish 
 box, with the bottom turned up for the table top and the red box- 
 lid laid over this bottom. You can readily see that it will be 
 necessary to cut away practically all of each side, leaving only 
 the corners to form the legs. 
 
 Ancestral tablets can easily be made by pushing small pieces of 
 red cardboard into slits cut in the tops of pill-boxes. The Chinese 
 are overwhelmed by the fear that no one is more alive than the 
 dead; so every morning the son of the house must kneel, bump 
 his forehead politely on the floor, and worship the tablets in which 
 the spirits of the dead are supposed to reside, thus keeping the 
 restless ghosts of the departed in a good humor all day; otherwise 
 what harm they might do! The idol in Chapter XI will be use- 
 ful for this story. 
 
mim primer 
 AGA TH oS 7 
 
 “ Eighteen goddess-like daughters do not equal one son with 
 limp.” 
 
 “ A stupid son is better than a crafty daughter.” 
 “The pestle produces white rice, and the rod good children.” 
 
 “Talk does not cook rice.” 
 
XVI 
 PANTALOONS OUT OF THE SKY 
 
 THERE is a wolf in this April Fool story, and a 
 grandmother, and two small red caps: almost as 
 if two Little Red Riding Hoods might appear, 
 but instead of being girls they will be boys, and 
 the wolf himself is going to be a far more dread- 
 ful creature than either child had imagined. For 
 on a certain day in April their grandmother took 
 them to the temple. It had been very slow work 
 for her to get there on account of her lily feet 
 and her old rheumatic back. But it was the 
 birthday of the special Children’s God, and she 
 felt that it was absolutely necessary for her to 
 go, for Heavenly Repose and Glorious Fighter 
 were all the men-folks she had left in the world 
 to worship her ancestral tablet when she herself 
 should leave this life and go to be “a guest on 
 high.” So although she was poor and feeble and 
 old, she hobbled to the temple, holding a small 
 boy by each hand. 
 
 But when they were once inside the temple they 
 simply bellowed with fear at the first sight of the 
 
 [ 217 ] 
 

 
 A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 
 
 idol. He was so big! His head towered half- 
 away up to the ceiling! His terrible eyes stared 
 in such a hideous black-and-white fashion! He 
 held a giant bow and arrow in his hands ready 
 to strike the enormous wolf which was up in the 
 ceiling ready to spring. You would have cried, 
 yourself, at the sight of those red yawning jaws, 
 those sharp white teeth. 
 
 “Oh! Oh! Oh!” screamed Glorious Fighter 
 and Heavenly Repose, panic-stricken. Their 
 grandmother held them with an extra tight grip: 
 “Now listen to me,” she said, “this is a very 
 good idol. He cares for little children, so you 
 must burn your incense and make your little of- 
 fering to thank him for keeping the wolf away 
 from you all this last year; for how often have 
 I told you that if one of you dies it is absolutely 
 necessary for me to give your body to the dogs 
 at once, because the dog is the nearest relative 
 of the wolf; if I don’t, the wolf himself will come 
 and take another child. And then who will wor- 
 ship my ancestral tablet when I die? So kneel 
 down quickly and get it over with.” 
 
 Down they knelt on their trembling knees; they 
 bumped their red caps on the ground, as they 
 bowed far over several times; they lighted the 
 
 [ 218 ] 
 

 
 PANTALOONS OUT OF THE SKY 
 
 joss-sticks, they said their “thank you” in the 
 thinnest little voices you ever head. Then they 
 rushed pell-mell from the temple, leaving their 
 grandmother to hobble out all alone, mumbling 
 something very curious indeed: “I’ve got one 
 little girl and one little boy! One little girl and 
 one little boy!” she kept telling the idol; certainly 
 a peculiar thing to say when out in the open air 
 were waiting two little red-capped boys. 
 
 But perhaps you do not quite realize about the 
 gods of China, what a jealous lot they are! They 
 might envy a poor old grandmother with two 
 grandsons—they might think it a great joke to 
 let the evil spirits send illness to those sons—but 
 where, oh where, in all of China was there an idol 
 to bother his head about a granddaughter? Just 
 a trifling nuisance, she, not worth noticing, for 
 could she ever worship ancestral tablets? Of 
 course not! So Granny had the bright idea of 
 mumbling, “ One little girl, one little boy.” For 
 even in case one boy should be taken away, there 
 would still be one left to care for her tablet. She 
 chuckled with amusement; this was a delightful 
 joke on the gods. She decided to put an earring 
 in the ear of Glorious Fighter at once and call 
 him “ Silly Girl” from that day onward. Which 
 
 [ 219 ] 
 

 
 
 A CHINA SHEPHERDESS | 
 
 
 
 thing she did to the great disgust of Silly Girl. 
 He could not see why he had not been the brother 
 to keep on being a boy. 
 
 And then it seemed as if a little Chinese gust 
 of wind decided to have a hand in their family 
 affairs. At first it was just a pleasant little 
 zephyr out in the mission yard watching the Blue 
 Belles doing their Monday’s washing. How they 
 did rub! What suds they did make! And when 
 the little coats and trousers were hung on the 
 line to dry what fun it was to blow the sleeves 
 and legs around in the most violent gymnastics 
 imaginable! But there was one little pair of pur- 
 ple pantaloons not properly pinned to the clothes- 
 line; in fact, not pinned at all; and when the 
 zephyr changed to a full-fledged breeze it lifted 
 those small purple pantaloons and sent them 
 swimming through the air straight up on the 
 school roof. There they flapped helplessly, while 
 the breeze held its sides and laughed and laughed. 
 “ Climb that roof!” it ordered. “ But I can’t!” 
 gasped the pantaloons breathlessly. “ Non- 
 sense!” replied the breeze, and turned itself into 
 a regular gale as it wafted them up and up in the 
 air, sky-rocketing them off into space like dizzy 
 runaways. 
 
 [ 220 ] 
 
PANTALOONS OUT OF THE SKY 
 
 _ Far down below stood Heavenly Repose and 
 Silly Girl shouting, “ Oh, see that funny purple 
 kite!’ And then the Chinese gale of wind grew 
 tired of its fun, or perhaps it heard a sailor on the 
 river whistling to Favoring Wind Ear for a 
 favorable breeze; in any case, it left those panta- 
 loons in midair, and departed. 
 
 Down they fluttered to the courtyard where 
 four arms reached up to grab: “ Mine! Mine 
 first!”’ shouted Heavenly Repose. “ Mine! 
 Mine!” cried Silly Girl, and dashed indoors with 
 his prize to show Granny. 
 
 The old lady was worrying again: Suppose an 
 earring and a new name were not enough to de- 
 ceive the gods? Suppose they knew that Silly 
 Girl was a boy, doing boy-things all day long? 
 Just when she was worrying hardest in came Silly 
 Girl with the purple pantaloons. Granny had an 
 inspiration. “ Put them on!” she ordered. Silly 
 Girl put them on. They were rather big for him, 
 but by fastening the waistline in tucks up under 
 his arms they did well enough. Granny 
 chuckled: “I know! I know! I know how to 
 make the gods believe you’rea girl. I'll send you 
 to that girl’s school around the corner. Then 
 they’ll believe it!” 
 
 [ 221 ] 
 

 
 A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 
 
 Silly Girl nearly died of the mortification of it. 
 “ Make brother the girl and send him, Venerably 
 Aged,” he begged. But Granny knew enough not 
 to spoil such a bright idea half-way through it! 
 She took a long string of cash and went down 
 to the Street of the Seventy Honest Merchants. 
 Poor as she was she bought some bangs with a 
 lovely long pigtail hanging down behind, and she 
 bought a bead-dangling head-band to go with it. 
 “ For my granddaughter,” she announced loudly, 
 to deceive any gods who might be listening. 
 
 Poor Silly Girl! He stamped his feet and 
 vowed he would not wear those foolish bangs or 
 that girlish pigtail. He wriggled and squirmed 
 and dodged, but Granny finally fastened them in 
 place, lecturing him meanwhile on the dread in 
 her heart: “ Suppose one of you died, and then 
 the other died, who would take care of me? 
 Gods never trouble with girls, so you will be 
 safer than Heavenly Repose will ever be. So do 
 be a sensible grandson. Anyhow, it needn’t be 
 for long. Just until we get the gods used to the 
 idea that you are a girl. That isn’t much to do 
 for your grandmother, is it? ” 
 
 Silly Girl thought that it was, but he let her 
 lead him to the gate of the Heavenly Education- 
 
 [ 222 ] 
 
PANTALOONS OUT OF THE SKY 
 
 ‘Instilling School. Grandmother Gate-Woman 
 poked her head out: “Come on in!” she cried 
 cordially. If you have ever been to the dentists 
 you know how the heels of Silly Girl’s sandals 
 dragged on the floor. It was Cynthia who re- 
 ceived them. “ Alas!” she cried, when grand- 
 mother had made her request, “there isn’t an 
 inch of room in the entire school where another 
 bed can be put. We've been taking new girls 
 every week until now we are much too over- 
 crowded. It breaks my heart to say ‘No!’” 
 
 Silly Girl began to look much less glum. His 
 heart gave a delighted flop, and he promptly 
 stood up ready to depart at once. But grand- 
 mother had no intention of departing—no indeed. 
 She began to argue: “ What! No room for such 
 a tiny little girl as mine, just a mere splinter of a 
 child? And if there isn’t a vacant bed, never 
 mind; I live just around the corner in the Lane 
 of Wind-and-Rain, so the child can easily live 
 under my rooftree; in fact I prefer it.” 
 
 “In that case,”’ smiled Cynthia, “ I am sure we 
 can arrange it nicely.” Whereupon the face of 
 the new pupil got glummer than ever. These 
 women! He dug his feet in the floor with rage. 
 
 Said Cynthia: “ What a sensible and progres- 
 
 [ 223 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 sive old lady you are! For I notice that the feet 
 of your lovely little granddaughter are unbound. 
 The Middle Flowery Country needs girls who 
 can walk and read and be as free as boys, doesn’t 
 itis 
 
 What a terrible question! For if ever an old 
 lady believed in golden lilies for girls it was this 
 particular old lady. She wondered suddenly if 
 she ought not to bind the feet of Silly Girl if she 
 wanted to deceive the gods entirely. But it was 
 too late just now, of course. ‘Ten thousand 
 thanks for your worshipful care of my little no- 
 good-girl,” she said, rising and bowing, pleased 
 at the success of her plan. 
 
 Cynthia rose and bowed also: “If you could 
 spare Silly Girl to eat evening rice with us then 
 she could get acquainted with the other girls to- 
 day and she would not feel so strange in school 
 tomorrow.” 
 
 “Willingly! Willingly! ” beamed the old lady, 
 enchanted at the thought that the gods could at 
 once see her granddaughter being a grand- 
 daughter. But Silly Girl, of course, did not 
 agree. He lifted up his voice and wailed loudly 
 when the well-known figure went hobbling away. 
 Cynthia took him on her lap tenderly: “ There! 
 
 [ 224 ] 
 
PANTALOONS OUT OF THE SKY 
 
 
 
 There! little girl, cheer up,” she whispered gaily, 
 “you'll love us all tomorrow.” 
 
 Silly Girl was simply furious to be cuddled! 
 At hisage! Byastranger! He leaped from her 
 lap like a frog and pounded her knees angrily: 
 “ You let me alone! ” 
 
 Cynthia was surprised, but exceedingly tact- 
 ful: “ What a strong girl you are, Silly Girl! 
 And do you mind my telling you that you are so 
 much better than your name that you ought to 
 have a new one! Or do you like it?” 
 
 “T certainly don’t!” grouched Silly Girl 
 crossly. 
 
 “Well, it’s easy to change it. Fully half of 
 our girls have school names which they have 
 chosen for themselves. You might choose a new 
 one, too.” 
 
 “T choose Glorious Fighter,” he said promptly 
 and vigorously. 
 
 “Oh, but that’s a boy’s name,” Cynthia ob- 
 jected, “and it really doesn’t sound any better to 
 me than Silly Girl. Why don’t you choose some- 
 thing pretty like Precious Pearl or Lily Flower or 
 Jade-like Blossom “4 
 
 Silly Girl was bubbling with rage at such sug- 
 gestions, when the room began to fill up with girls 
 
 [ 225 ] 
 
 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 who gathered in line to wait for evening rice. 
 Cynthia introduced Silly Girl to everybody, add- 
 ing, “We must do all we can to make this little 
 newcomer feel at home.” 
 
 The Blue Belles nodded, and immediately 
 swarmed around the embarrassed new pupil only 
 to have their flattering offers of friendship sadly 
 rebuffed by the irritated Silly Girl. Who wanted 
 a lot of foolish girls standing around, simpering? 
 He kicked everybody who came near! And when 
 he kicked, one of the startled Blue Belles sud- 
 denly cried: “ My Sunday-go-to-meeting panta- 
 loons! She’s got on my best purple pantaloons! 
 The ones I couldn’t find!’ She made a grab for 
 them. 
 
 Now it is true that Silly Girl did not in the least 
 want the horrid trousers, but it would never do 
 to hand them over meekly to any idiotic girl 
 named Fragrant Gentility. Not he! A mere 
 girl! He rushed at the mere girl, and the mere 
 girl rushed at him: Cynthia had never seen such 
 a whirligig as they made in the center of the 
 schoolroom floor—a hundred fists seemed to 
 thump a hundred backs as they pummeled and 
 rolled and kicked each other. The scandalized 
 Blue Belles stood frozen on the side-lines; Cyn- 
 
 [ 226 } 
 
PANTALOONS OUT OF THE SKY 
 
 thia alone had courage to rush over and separate 
 the fighters. 
 
 “For shame, Fragrant Gentility, for shame! 
 To fight a poor little new girl, so much smaller 
 than yourself! Stop it, this moment!” 
 
 Fragrant Gentility hung her head. But Silly 
 Girl held his upright, hurt to the core; poor little 
 new girl, he? Bah! 
 
 “Fragrant Gentility, you must come over and 
 apologize to Silly Girl at once, dear.” 
 
 Fragrant Gentility obeyed. Girls are born to 
 obey in China. She stepped toward Silly Girl: 
 “T am sorr ” she started, and then her eyes 
 lighted on those dear pantaloons, undoubtedly her 
 own because of that special little patch on the 
 knee—how dared anybody wear her blessed 
 Sunday-go-to-meeting pantaloons? She lunged 
 straight at the lordly Silly Girl, who had been 
 waiting with a smirk to receive her apology. He 
 was astonished at her fierceness, he turned to es- 
 cape, and Fragrant Gentility grabbed the new 
 girl’s pigtail as it swung in a circle during the 
 flight. But zip! to her perfect horror the new 
 girl’s entire scalp came loose in her hands—pig- 
 tail, bangs, and head-band! Fragrant Gentility 
 nearly fainted with the horror of it. 
 
 [ 227 ] 
 
 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 Cynthia nearly fainted also. For one awful 
 moment she held her hands over her eyes and 
 groaned aloud: “ Oh, Silly Girl! Oh, Silly Girl! ” 
 
 And then, giggles, giggles, giggles! Lovely 
 little Chinese Blue Belle giggles! Her eyes flew 
 open and rested on Silly Girl. Under the lost 
 scalp she seemed to have another complete scalp! 
 What an amazing child! It took a full moment 
 for the truth to dawn on her—this girl was a boy. 
 And the purple pantaloons undoubtedly belonged 
 to Fragrant Gentility. 
 
 She called for the Plain Gray Lady to settle 
 such a delicate question of etiquette: how did one 
 treat a boy masquerading in a girl’s school? 
 Evidently one treated him by leading him straight 
 home to his grandmother. 
 
 “Tt is a matter of deep regret to me that your 
 granddaughter is a boy and therefore cannot be 
 received into my school,” she said, bowing 
 politely. 
 
 The old woman sighed. Here she was, back 
 again where she started. She put her finger on 
 her lip and whispered: “Sh! Sh! Please don’t 
 say it so loudly on the night air, where there may 
 be more evil spirits than usual hanging around 
 waiting for daylight. They will like nothing 
 
 [ 228 ] 
 
PANTALOONS OUT OF THE SKY 
 
 better than to tell all this to the gods about me 
 tomorrow. Aiya! Aiya! Was there ever such 
 an unlucky old woman as I? Only two men-folks 
 left to worship my tablet, and suppose something 
 happened to both of them, where would I be? 
 AivatexAl:yal’ 
 
 “Oh!” sighed the Plain Gray Lady softly, 
 beginning to see that this had been no April Fool 
 prank on her school, but a desperate heart-broken 
 old woman afraid for her future. “Do not 
 grieve,” she said gently, “you look as if you 
 would live dozens of years yet, and the little boys 
 are quite husky; and as for me, I live in China 
 especially to bring good news to such as you. 
 May I not come every afternoon and tell you 
 slowly about this comfortable news? ” 
 
 “Oh, come often! Come often! Ive tried 
 everything else. But tell me slowly. Tell me 
 slowly! Tell me now! I can’t wait till tomor- 
 row.” 
 
 The Plain Gray Lady went without her eve- 
 ning rice that night; and when she went to bed 
 she said to herself with a smile that she was glad 
 “the wind bloweth where it listeth,” especially 
 when it brought pantaloons out of the sky. 
 
 [ 229 ] 
 
. 
 
 
 

 
 Poor Granny! In spite of having everything planned so com- 
 pletely in her own mind, she was in sad doubt about her funeral! 
 You can act it all out very dramatically by making paper horses 
 with paper servants and a paper house to be carried through the 
 streets in her funeral procession: when the grave is reached, burn 
 the horses, the servants, the house, to show how she wanted 
 these comforts sent on into the spirit world ahead of her. It 
 will seem so very useless and pathetic and heathen that you 
 will be sure to love the end of the story even better than before. 
 
miu mateorr 
 ADBAMLOnt 
 
 , 
 
 “Get the coffin ready, and the man won’t die.’ 
 “A dry finger cannot lick up salt.” 
 
 “ He who rides a tiger is afraid to dismount.” 
 
XVII 
 GRANNY’S COFFIN WAS VERY RED 
 
 Very red. And very big. And very shiny. 
 And very empty. Many, many times that day 
 Granny had hobbled over on her lily-toes to peer 
 inside it. She was dreadfully proud of it! It 
 was so very handsome, so very expensive, and so 
 very red. Red in China stands for good-luck, 
 for happiness. Granny felt that it made her 
 house a grand place indeed to have anything so 
 gorgeous in the best room—she boasted about it 
 to her neighbors, and she went so far as to send 
 for Cynthia. 
 
 “* Over-the-ocean woman,” she said, “I want 
 you to see the fine present my son has just given 
 me. Honorably step this way!” 
 
 Cynthia stepped. And there stood the coffin, 
 only she was not quite sure whether it was really 
 a coffin or not—it might be just a chest for stor- 
 ing clothes. But when she looked inside it seemed 
 to her that she had never seen anything so very, 
 very empty! She was more shocked than she had 
 ever been in her whole life: she felt too sorry to 
 
 [ 233 ] 
 

 
 A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 
 
 say a word. Granny however talked enough for 
 two: 
 
 “Isn’t it beautiful? So red! And costing so 
 much. It just shows what a good son I have and 
 how much he thinks of me.” 
 
 “Oh! Does it?” Cynthia gasped. 
 
 “Why of course it does! A careless, inatten- 
 tive, unloving son might wait until the very last 
 moment to buy his mother a coffin. Why, I’m 
 tickled to pieces! I wish you could see the cheap 
 affair old Mrs. Ming has in her house, have you 
 ever seen it? She lives on the Street of the 
 Twelve Red Rubies. I tell you, the old lady was 
 quite ashamed of hers when she saw mine. And 
 as for the mother of Mr. Huong next door, she 
 will really die of envy if he doesn’t get her one 
 like mine. But do sit down; sit here, I beg of you. 
 I have been very rude not to offer you a seat at 
 once.” 
 
 “ This is much too high a seat,” Cynthia ob- 
 jected politely, for you will remember that the 
 chairs near the ancestral tablets were too honor- 
 able to be sat on until one had been urged at least 
 three times. Cynthia, you see, had charming 
 Chinese manners! 
 
 But for once her hostess did not care at all for 
 
 [ 234 ] 
 
GRANNY’S COFFIN WAS VERY RED 
 
 ceremony; she fairly pushed Cynthia into the 
 chair: “ Please do not use up the air in idle talk,” 
 she begged, “ there’s no time to waste. Somehow 
 I feel very queer today. I suppose it’s because 
 I’m so happy over my beautiful coffin.” 
 
 “Yes,” agreed our China Shepherdess, “ I can 
 see that it might make you feel queer. It even 
 makes me feel queer! But lam glad that you are 
 also so happy over it.” 
 
 “Oh, very happy,” repeated Granny in the 
 solemnest voice you ever heard. “ Very happy. 
 Only—well!—you see, I’m such a little old wo- 
 man and it’s such a very big coffin. All last night 
 I kept thinking how very dark and lonely it would 
 be inside. I could even hear the howling.” 
 
 “ The howling? ” Cynthia asked. 
 
 The old lady looked astonished. Was it possi- 
 ble that white people did not even die in the same 
 way that yellow people died? ‘“ Yes, yes! the 
 howling of my funeral procession as it will be 
 when my friends go to call one of my three souls. 
 Perhaps you don’t know, though, that when a 
 person dies one of those three souls goes straight 
 - to the temple to stay until the funeral, then the 
 friends carry an empty sedan-chair to call the 
 soul back. I suppose they always do come back! 
 
 [ 235 ] 
 

 
 A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 
 
 I worried about it all night, for just suppose my 
 soul didn’t come back. I worried too for fear 
 my son had spent so much money on the coffin 
 that he might skimp on my spirit house, my spirit 
 furniture, my spirit cook, and the other spirit 
 servants.” 
 
 Cynthia, poor girl, looked more puzzled than 
 ever. She had to ask what in the world a “ spirit 
 cook ”’ was. 
 
 Granny, in her turn, looked puzzled: “ What? 
 Haven’t you seen the shop on the Street of the 
 Seventy Honest Merchants where they make 
 paper houses and paper life-sized images of ser- 
 vants and horses to be burned at the grave so that 
 those who go as ‘guests on high’ will have 
 houses and furniture in the spirit world. Ai ya! 
 how would I ever get along if he forgot all this? ” 
 
 Cynthia was speechless! 
 
 “I don’t suppose he could possibly forget to 
 buy the huge paper image to go ahead of the pro- 
 cession and act as Mandarin Guide. He may be 
 a busy man, but my son has lots of common sense. _ 
 Just the same, I got to worrying for fear he 
 wouldn’t remember to guard the living as well as 
 to take care of me when I’m a guest on high. 
 For I’m the mother of sons and grandsons, and 
 
 [ 236 ] 
 

 
 GRANNY’S COFFIN WAS VERY RED 
 
 
 
 Ikeep reminding this oldest boy of mine that the 
 day of a funeral must never fall on a day of the 
 same name as the birth year of any member of 
 the family, or a second death will happen in the 
 family right away. The soothsayers aren’t al- 
 ways as wise as they pretend! They might get 
 the wrong date so easily. But I’ve been warning 
 my daughters-in-law that if this should happen 
 then the priest must be asked to make a straw 
 image by binding twelve rice-stalks together, for 
 if he buries this in the coffin it will be a substitute 
 for the person who would otherwise have to die. 
 Well, now you know a few of the things that 
 make it so dangerous to die! ” 
 
 Cynthia said gently: “ I don’t like to have you 
 worry over things like that; didn’t you know I 
 had come to China especially to tell you 2 
 
 But the old lady interrupted her: 
 
 “You are young! What could you tell me? 
 And besides I haven’t told you half my troubles 
 yet, because I’m a good bit of a Buddhist, and 
 it’s quite possible that when I die I may be turned 
 into an animal of some sort and be sent back to 
 earth to live through any number of other births 
 —a cat, a dog, a frog, a mosquito: how do I know 
 what I may become? It seems to me that there’s 
 
 [ 237 ] 
 
 
 

 
 A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 
 
 too much for me to worry about, entirely too 
 much. I’m very tired of worrying! ” 
 
 “T should think you would be! And you really 
 must let me say what I started out to tell you, that 
 I came to China especially to bring you the good 
 news that Jesus Christ has already made every 
 possible preparation for you. He hasn’t for- 
 gotten anything. He has written it all down in 
 this letter to you. Listen: ‘ Let not your heart be 
 troubled, neither let it be afraid. Ye believe in 
 God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house 
 are many mansions, if it were not so I would have 
 told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And 
 if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come 
 again, and receive you unto Myself, that where I 
 am, there ye may be also.’ ” 
 
 Granny shook her head: “ That isn’t about me. 
 I don’t know that God. I never worshiped at His 
 shrine. I never gave Him an offering. He 
 wouldn’t go to all the trouble of fixing up a man- 
 sion for an old woman who never had paid a bit 
 of attention to Him! I knew these gods—there 
 isn’t one of them that really cares.” 
 
 Cynthia took Granny’s hand: “ You honorably 
 forget what I’ve told you every time I’ve come 
 to call. You forget that this God made you! So 
 
 [ 238 ] 
 
GRANNY’S COFFIN WAS VERY RED 
 
 of course He knows you! Of course He has your 
 mansion ready! He promised, you know.” 
 
 “Just tell me that all over again,” mumbled 
 Granny. “ I’m only a stupid old Chinese woman, 
 and I didn’t sleep last night. You read me all 
 over again what your Father God said.” 
 
 Cynthia read it again. Granny sighed: “It 
 doesn’t seem possible He means me. Read it just 
 once more! ” 
 
 Cynthia read it once more. 
 
 “Dear me!” sighed Granny, “ wouldn’t it be 
 fine if it were really meant for me. But there 
 are so many gods, I could never be sure of know- 
 ing yours.” 
 
 Cynthia told her a story. “I have a friend. 
 She married a missionary. They lived across 
 many oceans from their old home. They had a 
 baby, but the baby fell ill; the mother had to take 
 the baby back across those many oceans to her 
 own home. But she kept thinking, ‘ I mustn’t let 
 Molly forget her father.’ So every morning she 
 held Molly before her husband’s picture and 
 taught her to lisp, ‘Good morning, father!’ 
 Every single day for three years she did this, until 
 finally the time came when the father could come 
 home also. He reached the house sooner than he 
 
 [ 239 ] 
 

 
 A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 
 
 was expected and his wife was out, but in the 
 nursery was little Molly playing on the floor. He 
 was afraid to go in for fear the sight of a 
 strange man might frighten her, but just then she 
 looked up and the happiest little smile went over 
 her face as she ran forward to meet him, calling, 
 ‘Good morning, father!’ Oh, Venerable Grand- 
 mother, that’s all death is: Some morning you 
 will look up and find God standing in the door- 
 way to the other life, and the minute you see His 
 dear face you will drop everything and hurry to 
 Him, crying, ‘Good morning, Father, good 
 morning!’ ” 
 
 The old lady had been nodding her head all 
 through the story: “ Molly wasn’t scared! I 
 mustn’t be scared! But Molly knew that picture 
 by heart; but I—how should I know what God 
 is like? ”’ 
 
 “His picture is in every story in the Bible,” 
 Cynthia said. 
 
 Granny laid her wrinkled old hands on the 
 Bible: “ Then just let me see quickly! Quickly! 
 There’s no time to lose.” 
 
 Cynthia had a Blue Belle living under that 
 rooftree; and if you had-been in China you could 
 have seen, day after day, the loveliest sight in 
 
 [ 240 ] 
 
GRANNY’S COFFIN WAS VERY RED 
 
 all the world, I think: frail old Granny peering 
 carefully at the words she could not read while 
 the Blue Belle spelled through the Bible stories 
 slowly for her. 
 
 “Do you begin to see God any plainer?” she 
 would ask anxiously. 
 
 “Well yes, I think I do,” Granny would say, 
 “it seems as if even an old woman couldn’t be 
 afraid of a God-Who-Healed-The-Sick-At-Sun- 
 set-time. That was such a good thing to do.” 
 
 The youngest grandson piped up curiously: 
 “But only yesterday you said you’d know Him 
 anywhere because He was the God-Who-Blesses- 
 Little-Children.” 
 
 “So I did! So I did!” Granny nodded. 
 “There never was a God before who bothered 
 with a little child.” 
 
 “A child like me? ” asked the grandson. 
 
 “A child like you,” nodded Granny. 
 
 * And a child like me! ” the Blue Belle added, 
 with a great pride in the God who loved girls as 
 well as boys! 
 
 “Granny has a new smile-face!”’ every one 
 said. 
 
 “ Of course I have,” Granny beamed, “ and it’s 
 going to keep on being gladder yet because I’ve 
 
 [ 241]. 
 

 
 A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 
 
 found out that I’m not going to turn into a frog 
 or a dog or a cat or a mosquito when I die. 
 Father God has told me so in His Letter to me. 
 Read me what it says once more.” 
 
 The Blue Belle read: “ For we know that when 
 He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we 
 shall see Him as He is.” 
 
 You can see for yourself that peace and happi- 
 ness were coming to Granny. Somehow the 
 empty coffin did not matter at all; for warm, 
 sweet, tender, like a friend, the face of “‘ Father 
 God ” emerged from those dear Bible stories. So 
 that at dawn one Easter Sunday it was altogether 
 natural for her to close her poor tired eyes and 
 breathe her happy greeting: “Oh, good morn- 
 ing, Father, good morning! ” 
 
 “And she wasn’t a bit frightened,” the little 
 Blue Belle told Cynthia; “ father is keeping very 
 quiet about letting you plan a Christian funeral 
 just as Granny wished.” 
 
 The relatives were never so startled, so upset, 
 so puzzled, so impressed as when the Chinese 
 pastor read from the Book which Granny had 
 loved: “I am the resurrection and the life. . 
 Though a man die, yet shall he live. . . O death, 
 where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy vic- 
 
 [ 242 ] 
 
GRANNY’S COFFIN WAS VERY RED 
 
 tory? But thanks be to God which giveth us the 
 victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” 
 
 Surely you will like to sit in church next Easter 
 Sunday morning remembering that it is in ways 
 like this that the Saviour spreads His resurrec- 
 tion story round the world: from Granny’s house 
 to Neighbor Huong’s, from Neighbor Huong’s 
 to Mrs. Ming’s, from Mrs. Ming’s to other homes 
 all over town, until the whole earth shall be full 
 of the glory of God as the waters cover the sea. 
 
 [ 243 ] 
 

 

 
 When you make this pedler to show in your class, cut two 
 pedlers from heavy cardboard, cutting the bamboo pole double 
 also. Then paste the heads, shoulders, and poles together. Be 
 sure to cut the soles of the feet very flat and as large as possible, 
 so that when the two sets of legs are spread apart the pedler can 
 balance himself and his bundles. Miniature bucket and basket 
 should be tied on each end of the pole; use deep pill-boxes or the 
 small circular tin containers for adhesive tape, dental floss, etc. 
 For this story you may want to use the house (Chapter XI), 
 the idol (Chapter XI), and all the Blue Belles (Chapters IX 
 and X). 
 
mw riatesrn 
 LATO A TH aS 1 
 
 “When the market is brisk the seller does not stop to wash 
 the mud from his turnips.” 
 
 “If you believe in gambling you will have to sell your house.” 
 
 “Tf you want your children to lead a quiet life let them always 
 be a little hungry and cold.” 
 
XVIII 
 
 THE MOTHER OF A MAH JONG 
 CRY-BABY 
 
 Tuis is the story of the baby who ended by 
 having 101 mothers; although in the beginning 
 she had only one, of course, just the same as any 
 ordinary child. You will be astonished to know 
 that when Cynthia first saw her she thought she 
 was going to turn out to be a bucket of water or 
 a vegetable; but that was not on account of her 
 infantile looks, but on account of the peculiar 
 baby-carriage in which she was taking the air on 
 that lovely May day when a certain pedler saw 
 Cynthia coming down the street and hurried to 
 meet her. 
 
 I think he was probably saying to himself in 
 Chinese, “ These queer over-the-ocean persons 
 have soft hearts, maybe she will want to buy of 
 me.” For the softness of the Plain Gray Lady’s 
 heart had become known here and there all over 
 town, and it was only natural to hope that Cyn- 
 thia might be the same sort of strange being. 
 
 Apparently she was not inclined to softness; 
 
 [ 247 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 for after glancing at the bamboo pole over his 
 shoulder with a bucket of water splashing at one 
 end and a basket of vegetables at the other, Cyn- 
 thia said, “‘ Not buying today! ” 
 
 The pedler lowered his burdens carefully on 
 the street and smiled a mysterious smile: 
 “ Honorable Lady, slowly stay! Slowly listen! 
 Let me show you one little vegetable that can 
 laugh—yes? One little vegetable that can cry 
 —yes? One little good-enough-to-eat vegetable! 
 A little potato with eyes that can see! ” 
 
 Of course this sounded odd, to say the least! 
 Cynthia’s left foot lingered while her right foot 
 started on. 
 
 The pedler hastily brushed aside the vegetables 
 on top of his deep basket, and there—if you 
 please!—lay something that had little arms, little 
 legs. Needless to say, both of Cynthia’s feet 
 stood planted firmly in the street, and she could 
 hardly get breath enough to say, “ Do you mean 
 to tell me that you are selling that baby? ” 
 
 The pedler shrugged his shoulders: “Just a 
 cheap little potato! Cheap! Very cheap! ” 
 
 Cynthia wanted to cry. She was sure she was 
 asleep; yet when she pinched herself she found 
 she was awake. Wide awake! She wanted to 
 
 [ 248 ] 
 

 
 THE MOTHER OF A MAH JONG CRY-BABY 
 
 
 
 shake the dreadful man. “Is it a girl?” she 
 asked. He nodded, and repeated his “ cheap little 
 vegetable ” harangue. 
 
 “ How much? ” Cynthia asked. 
 
 His eyes gleamed. He held up a few fingers 
 to show how many strings of cash he wanted; in 
 our money about three dollars. Cynthia could 
 not, of course, carry heavy strings of Chinese 
 money around with her, so she asked the pedler 
 to come back to the mission at once, and she 
 would pay him. She did not even bargain with 
 him. “Soft! Soft!” he chuckled contentedly, 
 as he dumped the vegetables back on the baby 
 and swung his pole over his shoulder again. 
 
 “Tve bought a baby!” Cynthia cried to 
 Grandmother Gate-Woman excitedly. “ Don’t 
 you let this man get away till I’ve paid him!” 
 
 She rushed up-stairs for the money. Grand- 
 mother Gate-Woman pushed aside the vegetables 
 and lifted out the baby, looking shrewdly at the 
 weazened little cheeks, the skinny arms. “It’s 
 no sort of a baby at all,” she said to Cynthia, “it 
 isn’t fat, and it isn’t strong. It isn’t anything a 
 baby should be. Now, Shepherdess, don’t you go 
 buying a no-good baby!” 
 
 But Cynthia paid the pedler and closed the gate 
 
 [ 249 | 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 on him! “ You ought to be ashamed of yourself, 
 selling babies this way! ” 
 
 “ Think what a glorious foster-mother I have 
 fetched it!” said the pedler piously, and walked 
 off chuckling. | 
 
 Cynthia picked up her Boughten Baby anx- 
 iously, while Grandmother Gate-Woman wagged 
 her head in melancholy fashion. Even the Plain 
 Gray Lady looked depressed: ‘‘ It’s so sick, dar- 
 ling, so thin and pitiful! And I don’t know a 
 thing about bringing up babies.” 
 
 “Don’t you, indeed?” asked Cynthia. “ Well, 
 that needn’t worry us, for ’ma dabster at babies. 
 Haven’t I brought up four little sisters and one 
 little brother; mercy on us! What’s one 
 Boughten Baby more or less to me? And now 
 for a bath, you little wail-bone! ” 
 
 The Plain Gray Lady said that the Blue Belles 
 ought to be called in: “For they’re all older 
 sisters, too, and who knows but that your 
 ‘Boughten Baby’ may do as much good in town 
 as our school.” 
 
 “ Goody gracious,” chuckled Cynthia into the 
 baby’s ear, “ ain’t that lady expectin’ just entirely 
 too much of a muchness from you, Miss Wail- 
 bone?” The Boughten Baby bellowed “ Yes!” 
 
 [ 250 ] 
 
THE MOTHER OF A MAH JONG CRY-BABY 
 
 ‘Cynthia filled a little tub with hot water. She 
 dipped her finger in it carefully to test it. She 
 undressed the baby. The Blue Belles stood 
 around with their eyes as round as saucers: “O 
 Shepherdess,” they begged, “don’t wash the 
 baby! You will boil her, and she is not a vege- 
 table! She will die! We never, never wash the 
 babies in our homes.” 
 
 “Don’t you?” hummed Cynthia blissfully, 
 undressing her baby. 
 
 “Truly yes, Shepherdess,” echoed Grand- 
 mother Gate-Woman from the doorway, “ she 
 will die, if you boil her like that. Think of the 
 babies born under my rooftree, not one of them 
 ever washed! Oh desist! ” 
 
 “ Nevertheless,” said Cynthia firmly, “ I expect 
 to wash her every day,” and into the tub went 
 the baby. There are no words to print that in- 
 fant’s roar of rage and astonishment. The Blue 
 Belles stood wringing their hands and saying in 
 a sing-song chorus: “ Alas! Alas! She boils the 
 baby! ” 
 
 Grandmother Gate-Woman pattered back to 
 her gate where the Plain Gray Lady heard her 
 praying: “ Now Father God, please forgive the 
 young Shepherdess for making it such a clean-to- 
 
 [251 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 death baby. Help her to know better tomorrow, 
 Father God. Amen.” 
 
 Surely you can understand from this why 
 many heart-felt prayers are left unanswered; for 
 Cynthia knew that baths were very Christian 
 things and as good for boughten babies as for 
 any other kind! Yet the next morning when the 
 Blue Belles saw the tub being filled they implored 
 her earnestly: “ Teacher, do not wash her again! 
 You washed her only yesterday, that ought to 
 keep for a month, for a year, for a long, long 
 time! Oh, please don’t boil her again.” 
 
 ‘““A bath a day keeps the doctor away,” sang 
 Cynthia blithely, as she dipped the baby expertly. 
 The Blue Belles simply ached over it: George 
 flunked in every class all day. The Five Little 
 Peppers dashed home and told their mother. 
 Their mother told their aunts. Their aunts told 
 their neighbors. Their neighbors told their 
 neighbors. News of the clean-to-death baby 
 spread from street to street in that end of town, 
 and a great many mothers came to call. A great 
 many mothers went home to wonder. 
 
 “How is that clean-to-death baby today?” 
 people asked the moment they met and had said 
 their polite “‘ Have you eaten your rice?” 
 
 [ 252 ] 
 
THE MOTHER OF A MAH JONG CRY-BABY 
 
 “Eaten full, thank you. Well, I hear it’s get- 
 ting to be a good-enough-to-love baby; you can’t 
 believe all you hear, though; I thought I’d stop 
 and ask that old gate-woman as I passed.” 
 
 Presently they were saying: “She feeds it 
 buffalo milk; did you ever hear that babies liked 
 milk?” 
 
 “Absurd!” said some. “ Improper!” said 
 others. But that was nothing compared with 
 what Buffalo Bill said when Cynthia begged him 
 to try milking a buffalo cow. Begging him was 
 as hard as begging the cow; for neither she nor 
 any of her sister cows had ever heard of being 
 milked. They kicked Buffalo Bill till he was 
 black and blue; but he nobly stuck to his job, 
 simply because that silly over-the-ocean woman 
 had warmed his heart. 
 
 So the Boughten Baby grew round and plump 
 and very pleasant, a credit to bottles and baths. 
 Her 101 mothers hung over her adoringly, and 
 boasted day and night of her charms and her per- 
 fectly appalling cleanliness. Yet all this time 
 Cynthia kept remembering the one real mother 
 somewhere in town, with empty aching arms. 
 She used to go to listen to the women praying to 
 Kwang-Yin, the Goddess of Mercy, who has so 
 
 [253 | 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 many hundred hands that it is no wonder she is 
 supposed to have power to protect from sorrow. 
 There they would kneel, those women, and it was 
 something like this each one said: “ Great Mercy, 
 great pity, save from misery, save from evil, 
 broad, great, efficacious, responsive Kwang- Yin.” 
 Cynthia used to ask the women what their trou- 
 ble was, and she often sent Grandmother Gate- 
 Woman on a similar errand to that temple. One 
 day the old woman said as usual, “ Excuse my big 
 rudeness, but could I help your ” 
 
 “T can hardly believe my ears! ” exclaimed the 
 younger woman, and urged by the friendly old 
 soul she poured out the whole story of her mis- 
 fortunes: How three men came to sit under the 
 family rooftree day after day to gamble with her 
 husband. She tiptoed past the room on house- 
 hold errands, yet the only sounds that ever broke 
 the silence were the occasional rattling of dice, 
 the occasional clattering of the bamboo-and-ivory 
 Mah Jong pieces on the table; sometimes a man 
 said, “ Pung! ” and sometimes he said, “ Chow! ” 
 
 ** All day they do, and all night. The solemnest 
 men in all the Middle Flowery Country, they 
 never laugh, they never smile; you could not pos- 
 sibly tell from their faces what they are thinking, 
 
 [ 254 ] 
 
THE MOTHER OF A MAH JONG CRY-BABY 
 
 and that is why I never guessed that my husband 
 was losing until little by little his debts grew too 
 big. He sold the red-lacquered chairs. But that 
 was not enough. He sold the red-lacquered 
 tables. Still not enough. He sold the old porce- 
 lain vases, centuries old. Not enough yet! He 
 sold the copper pots, the old brass urns. Not 
 enough. He sold the dishes. Not enough. 
 Never, never enough. He sold and sold and sold, 
 until there was not enough rice in the rice-pot, 
 and my sons’ faces grew pinched with hunger. 
 My baby grew sick, so sick that I felt sure she 
 had lost one of her three souls.” 
 
 “What did you do?” asked Grandmother 
 Gate-Woman. 
 
 The little mother told how she went out on 
 the street at sunset-time with the baby’s jacket, 
 how she waved it and waved, calling frantically: 
 “ Come back, little lost soul, come back! Come 
 back! Come back!” For of course she felt sure 
 that if the lost soul could once see the familiar 
 little jacket it would long to slip inside and go 
 indoors contentedly. But she waved and waved, 
 she called and called; and when she went back in 
 the house the baby also was gone—gambled away 
 by its father. 
 
 [255] 
 
— 
 A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 
 
 
 
 Grandmother Gate-Woman said cautiously: 
 “We have a baby under our rooftree. A little 
 good-to-love baby. Come with me and see her.” 
 But, of course, she never suggested that it might 
 be this mother’s baby. She led the way to the 
 school and up to the improvised nursery where 
 the Boughten Baby was busily trying to get all 
 her toes into her mouth. “Just look at this 
 baby!” proudly boasted Grandmother Gate- 
 Woman. 
 
 The baby-less mother gave one surprised look, 
 then picked up the baby hungrily. When Cynthia 
 came in she knew at once that nobody but the 
 real mother could croon like that, or hug like that. 
 “Oh dear! Oh dear!” cried Cynthia to herself, 
 “ she'll take my Boughten Baby home with her.” 
 And her own heart nearly broke—to think of 
 missing those quaint bias eyes, those cunning 
 clutching fingers! But the mother shook her 
 head: “It’s my baby, but how could I take her 
 home to my rooftree? How could I hide her — 
 from her father? How could I feed her, when 
 even my sons are hungry? Oh, no, I cannot take 
 my baby, ever! Oh my precious jewel! My lit- 
 tle ten thousand ounces of gold! U’m! U’m! 
 U’m!” 
 
 [ 256 ] 
 
THE MOTHER OF A MAH JONG CRY-BABY 
 
 ' Cynthia wiped her eyes: “I'll always be just 
 as good as I know how to be to your baby,” she 
 said simply. 
 
 “Oh, I see your goodness sticking out all over 
 my baby already,” said the mother, poking the fat 
 little cheeks and the dimpled elbows. ‘“‘ You are 
 better with babies than Iam! And yet I did well 
 by my girl! J treated her just like her brothers. 
 Why, on the day when I first took her to see my 
 own parents, I daubed some soot from the bottom 
 of the rice-pot on her forehead; for the pot is 
 iron, and the soot could be a charm to give her 
 boldness against all sorts of demons. And when 
 she entered her second year I even let her choose 
 her career. But this, of course, was foolish of 
 me, wasn’t it?” 
 
 Cynthia hated to admit it: “ You see, I don’t 
 know what you mean? ” 
 
 * Oh, don’t you? Why, I put on the floor be- 
 side her a big basket full of twelve objects— 
 things like a book, a suit of clothes, a piece of 
 money, bread, a pair of scissors, seeds, abacus, 
 andsoon. My next-to-the-youngest boy grabbed 
 the seeds from the basket when we let him chose 
 his career; so of course we know he will be a 
 farmer when he grows up. But girls can’t have 
 
 [257] 
 

 
 A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 careers, and I think I did wrong to let this little 
 baby try her luck in secret.” 
 
 “What did she choose?” Cynthia asked, 
 amused. 
 
 The Mah Jong Baby’s mother looked a bit 
 ashamed: “ S-she c-chose a b-book!” she stam- 
 mered, “Just fancy! That ought to mean she’s 
 going to be a scholar; but of course a girl could 
 never be a scholar! I’m afraid I angered the © 
 gods.” 
 
 But Cynthia was patting the cheek of the 
 Boughten Baby: “A scholar? But of course 
 she’s going to be a scholar, she’s begun already. 
 It was on account of her we opened our mission 
 kindergarten last month, because so many moth- 
 ers came to inquire about their babies that we 
 offered to take their four-year-old children in 
 school every morning. Oh, yes, rest your heart! 
 She’ll be a scholar! ” 
 
 About the time of parting there are no words 
 with which to tell. Cynthia left them alone for 
 a while; an hour later Grandmother Gate- 
 Woman came in to say: “ You will havea thanks- 
 giving in your heart over what that mother said 
 of you, Shepherdess! You see, I was telling her 
 all about Father God: how kind He is, how He 
 
 [ 258 ] 
 

 
 THE MOTHER OF A MAH JONG CRY-BABY 
 
 
 
 seeks the lost, and even has a special Home up- 
 stairs in heaven for us all. I thought maybe she 
 couldn’t believe at first; how can any of us poor 
 Chinese take it in quickly? It is so good! But 
 the baby’s mother said to me, ‘ Why shouldn’t I 
 believe, when up-stairs in Heaven today I saw 
 your Father God’s wife taking care of my baby!’ 
 Now, Shepherdess, excuse me, but I think it’s 
 quite a lovely thing to have her call you Father 
 God’s wife—His ‘Walk Behind’: Father God 
 leads, you follow!” 
 
 Once upon a time somebody said: “ God could 
 not be everywhere, and so He made mothers.” 
 But I think you will agree with me that this is 
 hardly a true statement, since God is everywhere; 
 and for the lands where the mothers need Him 
 the most He has made—missionaries! 
 
 [259 ] 
 

 
\ 
 he 
 
 
 
 You will want to make a red sedan bridal chair in which 
 Goody Two Shoes can ride to her mother-in-law’s house; dress 
 one of the Blue Belles in a red paper bridal dress with a red 
 bridal veil covering her head and face. Lift her over a make- 
 believe fire on the door-sill and have her bow the correct number 
 of times to all the necessary persons and “ spirits.” 
 
 You will want to have a camera on hand, of course, to take 
 a pretend-picture of the group of the Tsao family reading; and 
 as a surprise to all who hear your story, you might end by dis- 
 tributing to them a “ snap-shot ”—strips of blue paper each with 
 a picture of a Chinese person pasted on it. A search through 
 old missionary magazines will bring all the pictures you need. 
 Underneath each picture you might print a different Chinese 
 proverb from among those given in this book, and have them read 
 aloud; or, better yet, print the name of a Chinese city where you 
 have a school or hospital of your very own. 
 
niin mist on 
 AWA TAO AT 
 
 “An ugly daughter-in-law cannot conceal that fact from her 
 mother-in-law.” 
 
 “Shoes made by the elder brother’s wife are a pattern for the 
 younger brother’s wife to copy.” 
 
 “Tf there is no oil in the lamp the wick is wasted.” 
 
XIX 
 
 GOODY TWO SHOES GOT A MOTHER- 
 IN-LAW 
 
 THERE had been one of the ten new Blue Belles 
 who did not tinkle and ring true—Hi-di, the little 
 Bring Brother girl who had sobbed that if her 
 feet were unbound she would never get a mother- 
 in-law. Cynthia had worried over that girl more 
 than over all the other nine; indeed, that is what 
 the Good Shepherd once did with His ninety-and- 
 nine—the fact that they were all safe in the fold 
 made Him all the more anxious to find the one 
 little lost sheep. 
 
 Goody Two Shoes seemed to be the little odd 
 sheep among the Blue Belles. She used to sit and 
 stare at her big unbound feet soberly: “ Ugly! 
 Ugly!” she would groan. “Tl never marry a 
 mother-in-law with feet like these!” (For in 
 China a girl does not speak of marrying a hus- 
 band but always of marrying a mother-in-law, 
 the reason for which you shall soon see.) 
 
 “She’s nothing but a stolid, solid little lump 
 of Chinese clay!” sighed Cynthia. “ She hasn’t 
 
 [ 263 ] 
 

 
 A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 
 
 been molded or shaped into anything at all during 
 any of these days of school.” Aloud she said: 
 “Good shoes! Good feet! Sensible! Com- 
 fortable! Pretty!” 
 
 Goody Two Shoes moaned: “ Excuse me, 
 rudely speaking. Ugly feet! My life is ruined.” 
 
 This was really rather funny, and of course 
 very foolish; so one day Cynthia said in an off- 
 hand fashion: “I do wish somebody would tell 
 me the story of the famous Peking Bell! I’ve 
 been waiting for some one to tell me ever since I 
 came to China.” 
 
 “T can tell it!’ boasted Goody Two Shoes, 
 eagerly, and told the well-known Chinese legend 
 of the old bell-maker who was having trouble in 
 casting a great bell. He made it once, but it came 
 out imperfect. He made it twice, and it came out 
 imperfect again. So finally he called in a sooth- 
 sayer who, after much wise hemming and haw- 
 ing, said that his luck would never turn unless a 
 maiden would mix her blood with the molten 
 mass of metal. Then the bell would be perfect! 
 In order to help her father, without a moment’s 
 hesitation, the bell-maker’s young daughter 
 plunged straight into that seething, bubbling, 
 boiling vat; and, as she plunged, a workman 
 
 [ 264 ] 
 

 
 GOODY TWO SHOES GOT A MOTHER-IN-LAW 
 
 caught at her shoe and pulled it off. The bell was 
 a perfect success, but to this very day every stroke 
 that it strikes is followed by a low wailing note 
 like the Chinese word for shoe (hsieh) which is 
 said to be poor Ko Ai calling for her lost shoe! 
 
 “ Ah, my dear little Goody Two Shoes,” Cyn- 
 thia said, “ you are to be just another Ko A1. 
 Perhaps you too can find a way—a Christian way 
 to make your father’s life a success. Or perhaps 
 it is your country which you are to save by spend- 
 ing your life sacrificially wherever you go, for 
 there are so many people with broken bits of trou- 
 ble to be mended, broken thoughts to be put to- 
 gether to form a whole. Throw yourself in and 
 mend something, dear girl! Don’t just sit wail- 
 ing for your little lost shoes, your useless little 
 golden lilies! We’ve given you two big good new 
 feet so that you can do a big good new piece of 
 work for China. Do it, my dear!” 
 
 Goody Two Shoes looked very glum and 
 moody. She had liked telling the story, but she 
 certainly did not like having the story applied to 
 herself. Little she dreamed how soon she her- 
 self was going to be thrown into a whole new set 
 of circumstances as seething and bubbling as the 
 bell-maker’s boiling metal. For one day, after 
 
 [ 265 ] 
 

 
 A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 only seven months of school, her father came 
 with a sedan-chair to carry her to her home in the 
 next town. There was to be a wedding in the 
 family, he said, and he thought she had better 
 come home for the celebration. 
 
 Goody Two Shoes was greatly excited herself, 
 and as for the other scholars their little blue- 
 cotton trousers were dancing here and there all 
 over the school as the Blue Belles cried: “ Think 
 of all the wedding-cakes Hi-di will have! The 
 salted nuts! The rich meat balls! The pud- 
 dings! The candy! Lucky Hi-di! ” 
 
 “No, lucky me!” grinned George in her sensi- 
 ble fashion. “ I’d rather stay in the lesson-learn- 
 school and store my stomach with learning.” 
 
 “So would I!” echoed Jasmine Flower. 
 
 “And I!” repeated Luminous Jade. 
 
 Off rode Goody Two Shoes in her sedan-chair, 
 a-little glad and a little sober. But when she 
 reached home she was altogether sober, for would 
 you believe it? The wedding was to be her own! 
 She could hardly believe her ears. 
 
 “Cannot! Cannot!” she cried. “I ama 
 school-goer—over the hills in that school there is 
 my own bed-board with its little blue quilt—there 
 is my own primer with its words of wisdom— 
 
 [ 266 ] 
 

 
 GOODY TWO SHOES GOT A MOTHER-IN-LAW 
 
 
 
 ' there is my own rice-bowl—my own chop-sticks 
 
 99 
 
 
 
 “Be still, you big-footed little piece of bag- 
 gage!” scowled her mother crossly. ‘“ If we had 
 dreamed that that school would unbind your 
 golden lilies we would never have sent you there. 
 Never! You have no idea how quiet we have 
 had to keep about those feet of yours—not a word 
 to the go-between! He knew what your feet 
 were like before you went away, and has doubt- 
 less reported them to your mother-in-law as three 
 inches long. You must keep them hidden as 
 much as possible just at first, you unfortunate 
 big-foot girl! We have boasted at great length 
 of your learning, however, so that the go-between 
 got many extra strings of cash from the family ir 
 order to buy such a scholarly daughter-in-law.” 
 
 “Not a scholar! Not a scholar!” wailed the 
 little first-year-primer Blue Belle. ‘Oh, I don’t 
 want a mother-in-law—I want my school! I 
 want my Shepherdess! ” 
 
 “ Fiddle-dee-dee! ” clucked her mother sternly, 
 for of course it made no least difference what 
 such a mere child wanted; and that is how Goody 
 Two Shoes got a mother-in-law far quicker than 
 she liked, in spite of her unbound lilies. But 
 
 [ 267 ] 
 

 
 A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 
 
 Chinese weddings move slowly, and it took time 
 to pack her boxes. If you had been there you 
 would have understood why daughters were 
 called “lose-money-persons,”’ for there were 
 boxes and boxes and boxes full of embroidered 
 jackets, embroidered trousers, embroidered shoes, 
 as well as presents which had to be sent to the 
 groom and presents of money to the go-between 
 who had arranged the match. And in this par- 
 ticular case, the father of Goody Two Shoes was 
 rather nervous, fearing that at any moment the 
 fact of her big feet might cause trouble; not that 
 the wedding could be stopped, for engagements 
 in China are as binding as marriages, but high 
 words might be said and he might “ lose face ”— 
 nothing could be more awful than to feel publicly 
 ashamed. However, the Luck Doctor had chosen 
 the only possible lucky day: a date on which no- 
 body in the bride’s family and nobody in the 
 groom’s family had ever died. 
 
 Goody Two Shoes was dressed in her bright 
 red bridal coat and trousers, satin, embroidered 
 with gold dragons. There was a story about the 
 making of the coat, for the seamstress broke a 
 _needle while sewing a seam, which was such bad 
 luck that the family had had to buy more goods 
 
 [ 268 ] 
 

 
 
 GOODY TWO SHOES GOT A MOTHER-IN-LAW 
 
 
 
 and cut out a new coat. The whole wedding 
 seemed unlucky—a big-foot bride, broken- 
 hearted; needles splitting in two, spoiling an 
 expensive coat. 
 
 Finally the hour came to leave. A long red 
 veil was hung all over the face of the little bride, 
 and her father led her out to a great red sedan- 
 chair—the red chair in which only brides may 
 ride; the minute she stepped out in the street the 
 door was banged shut behind her to keep the 
 family luck from following her! And all this 
 time they were pinching Goody Two Shoes so 
 that she would cry and act unwilling to leave 
 home as every Chinese bride should act; but Iam 
 sure you know already that no pinching was 
 necessary ; Goody Two Shoes was able to do her 
 own weeping and sobbing. 
 
 Bing-bang-bing! snapped the family firecrack- 
 ers in front of her and behind her as her gaudy 
 chair was carried through the streets. Behind 
 her in a long procession came coolies bearing the 
 great red wedding-boxes full of the jackets and 
 trousers and shoes, other coolies were burdened 
 to their very chins with piles of quilts, furniture, 
 clocks. It really made a fine showing. 
 
 “My! My!” chuckled the people in the street, 
 
 [ 269 ] 
 

 
 A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 
 
 pressing closer to see whatever there was to see. 
 “ Her family have done well by her! But it’s a 
 bad business raising girls for other people. What 
 good will her family ever have of her again, now 
 that she’s going to belong to her mother-in-law? ” 
 
 Red paper was pasted on the gate-posts of the 
 bridegroom’s home, and a special wedding fire- 
 basket was blazing in front of the door-sill. The 
 bridegroom tapped on the big red chair with his 
 fan; Goody Two Shoes knew that the knock 
 meant “ We are there!” The curtains of the 
 chair were parted, and she felt herself being lifted 
 out. She was carried slowly over that little blaz- 
 ing fire, for evil spirits simply cannot endure any 
 heat; and you may be sure that the bridegroom’s 
 family did not want any unknown demons to 
 come in with the bride. Since it would be the 
 worst of luck for a bride to stumble over the 
 door-sill, Goody Two Shoes was carried right 
 into the house where she and the groom then 
 knelt down side by side and bowed their heads to 
 the ground so many times that I should think 
 they might have been dizzy—they bowed to the 
 bridegroom’s parents, they bowed to the bride- 
 eroom’s ancestral tablets, they bowed to the 
 bridegroom’s household gods, they bowed to the 
 
 [ 270 ] 
 

 
 GOODY TWO SHOES GOT A MOTHER-IN-LAW 
 
 bridegroom’s go-betweens who had arranged the 
 match, and of course they bowed to the guests. 
 
 And then! then! then! as they rose to their feet 
 the bridegroom lifted the red veil from the face 
 of his little bride and took the first look he had 
 ever had at Goody Two Shoes. By this time she 
 was much too frightened to cry, and she looked 
 exactly as she ought to look—her eyes primly 
 gazing at the floor, her hands meekly folded in 
 front of her, the nice yellow oval of her face bent 
 modestly downward. 
 
 The bridegroom was relieved: ‘“ This scholar 
 will make a very good person to dwell in the inner 
 apartments,” he said to himself. But what he 
 thought really did not matter very much; it was 
 his mother who counted. 
 
 “Turn around!” she ordered. 
 
 Goody Two Shoes made herself into a very 
 shaky merry-go-round. 
 
 “Not such a stupid face! ” croaked somebody’s 
 harsh old voice. “ And that’s a fine red satin 
 suit, the very best quality, handsomely em- 
 broidered.” 
 
 “True! True! A fine red suit, handsomely 
 embroidered,” echoed the less important relatives. 
 
 “ But look at her feet! Look at her feet! Can 
 
 [271] 
 

 
 A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 
 
 I believe my eyes? ” thundered the mother-in-law 
 in disappointment and rage. 
 
 “Ves, look at her feet! Look at her feet! 
 Can we believe our eyes? ” echoed the relatives. 
 They stared and stared and stared at Goody Two 
 Shoes, who seemed to have turned to ice. 
 
 “Sadly we have been cheated! Wickedly, 
 wickedly deceived! Look at her feet!”’ groaned 
 the old lady. 
 
 “ Look at her feet!” echoed the obliging rela- 
 tives. 
 
 “ Awful!” 
 
 “Dreadtil! 7 
 
 “ A regular working-woman’s feet!” 
 
 “ Impossible! ” 
 
 6é Huge! 93 
 
 Poor Goody Two Shoes was so embarrassed 
 that she felt like the most enormous giant ever 
 made: her head seemed to bump the ceiling, her 
 feet seemed to stretch from wall to wall, she won- 
 dered if anybody else had ever been so wide, so 
 high. Then suddenly she began shrinking and 
 dwindling until there was absolutely nothing left 
 of her. “ I’monly as big asa salted almond,” she 
 thought. ‘‘ How nice! They can’t see me now. 
 I'll fall through a crack and disappear.” 
 
 [ 272 ] 
 
GOODY TWO SHOES GOT A MOTHER-IN-LAW 
 
 All of which proves how nervous she was: for 
 actually she was the same Goody Two Shoes as 
 ever! Only, when the scathing remarks were 
 hottest, the bridegroom himself spoke up—he 
 said unbelievable things; he said that an edict had 
 been passed forbidding Chinese women to bind 
 their feet; he said that in the big seaport cities 
 this was being obeyed; only little conservative in- 
 land cities like theirs were behind the times; 
 everywhere else women of education had big feet. 
 He himself had seen ten thousand of them in 
 Shanghai. 
 
 Of course this threw cold water on the ladies. 
 They decided to keep quiet in his presence; and 
 the wedding went forward as Chinese weddings 
 generally do, with a great deal of feasting for 
 several days. But a curious thing was happen- 
 ing to Goody Two Shoes: when she was loneliest 
 she used to pretend that she was in school, and 
 one day she suddenly remembered the story of 
 the Peking bell. ‘“ The new Shepherdess said I 
 was another Ko Ai, that maybe I would have to 
 sacrifice myself to help others. Well, here I am! 
 Thrown into the midst of a lot of disagreeable 
 women! Greatly, greatly must I try to be 
 Ko Ai.” 
 
 [273 ] 
 

 
 A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 
 
 From that day, instead of being glum and meek 
 and lonely, she began to pretend that she was 
 a combination Cynthia, Amazing Grace, Plain 
 Gray Lady. She was too comical for words. 
 She was jolly like Cynthia, sensible like Amazing 
 Grace, wise like the Plain Gray Lady. She flung 
 herself into the life of that home like the heroine 
 she wanted to be, she was pleasant to the sisters- 
 in-law and merry with the nieces and nephews. 
 She told about the Mah Jong cry-baby and even 
 tried to make the babies under the rooftree 
 “clean-to-death ” with baths. 
 
 “She is trying to steal our hearts,” smiled the 
 sisters-in-law who were young. 
 
 ‘““She won’t succeed!” sneered the sisters-in- 
 laws who were older. ‘‘ There is no good in that 
 girl. She will not, will not, zwill not bow before 
 the kitchen god or the idols on the godshelf! She 
 ought to be spanked.” 
 
 But nobody spanked her. For the most part 
 she was too unimportant to notice, for around the 
 courtyard were so many houses rambling one into 
 the other that they formed a regular village, 
 everybody a daughter-in-law or a grandchild of 
 the stern old lady who had no use at all for Goody 
 Two Shoes when so many other problems kept 
 
 [ 274] 
 

 
 GOODY TWO SHOES GOT A MOTHER-IN-LAW 
 
 coming up. One day, however, there was the 
 sound of chair-bearers along the narrow street; 
 Cynthia was always amused at the bearers as 
 they trotted patiently hour after hour carrying 
 her sedan-chair and calling all sorts of remarks 
 to the people in the road: “Clear the way!” 
 “Scrape your shins!” “Open your head!” 
 “ Chair coming! Chair! Chair!” At last they 
 set down her chair before a certain gate, and 
 when she and the Plain Gray Lady walked in 
 Goody Two Shoes had the surprise of her life— 
 the Shepherdesses had come to call! Oh, such 
 introductions, such bowings! 
 
 Sisters-in-laws came hurrying from all the 
 houses around the courtyard. Nieces and 
 nephews scampered in. Everybody politely 
 pulled the sleeves of the guests: “Sit here! Sit 
 up higher! ” 
 
 But Cynthia hung back, modestly. The Plain 
 Gray Lady hung back modestly. 
 
 “Good enough manners!” mumbled the old 
 mother-in-law begrudgingly. 
 
 It took ten full minutes before they could sit 
 down and have tea. But the Plain Gray Lady 
 knew exactly how to win the approval of all 
 ladies, even hostile old ladies!’ She asked a hun- 
 
 [ 275 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 dred questions: How old are you? (The politest 
 question possible.) How many sons have you? 
 How many grandsons? What a handsome 
 room! What fine daughters-in-law! What 
 bright grandchildren! Could all these little girls 
 read? No? (By which you will see how 
 gradually she was bringing the conversation 
 around to Goody Two Shoes. ) 
 
 “No,” said the mother-in-law, “ none of us can 
 read.” 
 
 “Oh, what a pity!) None of you?” 
 
 “Well, yes, one of us. This little bride I have 
 just gotten for my youngest son can read a little, 
 and she is trying to teach my granddaughters. 
 But it is nothing. Nothing. A thing not worth 
 noticing.” 
 
 “Excuse me for impolitely differing,” begged 
 the Plain Gray Lady, “ but surely it is something 
 to be noticed. Might I put you to the great trou- 
 ble of hearing them read? ” 
 
 “No trouble! No trouble!” the mother-in- 
 law was forced to say politely. And presently 
 there was a lovely picture to be seen: Goody Two 
 Shoes and five wee nieces each with a sheet of 
 paper reading aloud in a sing-song fashion but 
 at the tops of voices: “ Let your light so shine 
 
 [ 276 | 
 
eg 
 GOODY TWO SHOES GOT A MOTHER-IN-LAW 
 a 
 
 before men that they may see your good works 
 and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” 
 
 “ Wonderful!” cried the Plain Gray Lady, 
 clapping her hands. 
 
 “ Wonderful! ” echoed the diplomatic Cynthia, 
 clapping her hands even louder. 
 
 The mother-in-law tossed her head a little, 
 partly with pride, partly with pleasure: “Oh, 
 that’s nothing! ” she boasted. ‘“ They read longer 
 than that quite often. But it’s not a thing to be 
 noticed—just little girls.” 
 
 Cynthia had an inspiration. “ Could I be per- 
 mitted to take a photograph of them, Venerable 
 One? In my over-the-ocean home I have little 
 sisters who would love to see your glorious little 
 grandchildren reading. See, I have my camera 
 with me! ” 
 
 But the old lady had no idea about this photo- 
 graph business. How was it done anyhow? 
 Flow could you send to America such a parcel of 
 flesh-and-blood children? Was it magic? That 
 thing looked like a box. Was it a box? Cer- 
 tainly she would never consent to have even 
 granddaughters wedge their heads into a box as 
 small as that. 
 
 Cynthia tried not to laugh. “They shall not 
 
 E2A4-1 
 
ae 
 
 A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
  ———ee eee 
 
 be wedged!” she promised. “They need only 
 stand and read. It will be quite safe. My little 
 box is like a house with a window. Behind the 
 window is a special piece of paper which knows 
 how to take pictures of the things in front of the 
 window.” 
 
 The old lady was interested: “ Then hee con- 
 descend to take a picture of me. These little 
 nuisances are hardly worth taking.” 
 
 The faces of the little nuisances fell about a 
 
 yard and a half. Such a crushing disappoint- 
 ment! But the Plain Gray Lady immediately 
 suggested a group picture with everybody in it, 
 old and young. “Then we can write home to 
 our friends in America that this is the clan of 
 the house of Tsao, where five bright little 
 granddaughters have learned to read.” 
 But the old lady objected: “ That is entirely 
 too much flattery for five such little trifles. I 
 also must be seen reading. Give me some- 
 thing to read, and then let your box look at us.” 
 
 Cynthia smiled at such vanity. But a Bible 
 was given the old lady and tracts to all the others. 
 They stood there like stiff statues, with the most 
 painfully fixed expressions on their faces, the 
 most scholarly scowls on their solemn foreheads. 
 
 [ 278 ] 
 

 
 GOODY TWO SHOES GOT A MOTHER-IN-LAW 
 
 
 
 _ And the old lady scowled hardest of all. She 
 scowled too wisely! For Goody Two Shoes, 
 looking over her shoulder, cried: “Oh, excuse 
 me! Excuse me! But the Venerable One is 
 holding her Book upside-down. Excuse me, but 
 print belongs this side up. Allow me to fix it! 
 Excuse me!” And she turned the Bible the 
 proper way round. 
 
 But the old lady was simply furious. She felt 
 that she had lost face. ‘“ Simpleton!” she 
 snapped, and slapped the ears of Goody Two 
 Shoes so hard that tears came dripping down her 
 cheeks like tiny Niagara Falls. 
 
 Goody Two Shoes wiped away Niagara hastily. 
 From somewhere in her new heart she fetched 
 up an April-showery smile: ‘“ Excuse me!” she 
 bowed. 
 
 The old lady grew ashamed of herself: “‘ This 
 silly wifeling has no proper spirit!” she ex- 
 plained rather lamely. “ We are ready. Let 
 your box look at us.” 
 
 The box “looked.” There was a little click; 
 all was over! Then Cynthia said: “ Now you 
 can smile all you want to! Smile, please, as if 
 you saw te 
 
 “A little birdie!” laughed the Plain Gray 
 
 [ 279 ] 
 
 
 
a 
 
 A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 Ea, 
 
 Lady, wiggling her fingers in midair like a 
 regular professional photographer. 
 
 The clan of the house of Tsao relaxed from 
 scholars into gigglers. ‘But where is the 
 birdie?” they giggled. Cynthia let her box 
 “look” at those giggles; there was another click. 
 
 “ Thank you,” she said. 
 
 And when she mailed the snapshots to Amer- 
 ica this is what she wrote: “ We sent a little 
 candle from our school one day, such a stupid 
 little candle that we feared it might be blown out. 
 But here it is, letting its light so shine that some 
 day (if we all watch and help and pray) the clan 
 of the house of Tsao is going to glorify our 
 Father who is in heaven. The candle’s name is 
 Goody Two Shoes.” 
 
 [ 280 ] 
 
Sube 
 
 
 
 No wonder the Blue Belles wanted to scamper away from 
 Cynthia’s giant fly! For on the soles of their feet flies have 
 pads of very fine hairs: little hooked>hairs which are the most 
 perfect collectors of all kinds of microscopic dirt; it almost looks 
 as though Glorious Fighter and Heavenly Repose had no more 
 to be afraid of a mere fly than of the most horrific idol in town. 
 You will, of course, find it great fun to make this poster your- 
 self. If the wings were made of stiff black tarlatan how effective 
 they would be. 
 
mM rae coT 
 LAT AL Th LY 7 Tb 
 
 “ Mix with mandarins and grow poor.” 
 
 “Men’s hearts are like iron and the rule of the mandarins 
 like a furnace.” 
 
 “ An honest magistrate has lean clerks; a powerful god has fat 
 priests.” 
 
 “Tet a dog bite a scholar and no one cares, but if a scorpion 
 sting a mandarin sympathizers come in such crowds as to break 
 down the doors.” 
 
XX 
 
 PRESUMPTUOUS CYN AND THE 
 MANDARIN 
 
 Ir was a fly that began this story. A fly, and 
 a Bible verse. The fly arrived in time to have 
 breakfast with Cynthia. He was a perfect nui- 
 sance. He sat on her nose and practised finger 
 exercises until she swept him away 1n disgust. 
 Then he sat on her oatmeal and made faces at 
 her by rubbing his legs over his nose in a most 
 ill-bred fashion. She swept him away in still 
 greater disgust. He did not mind! He started 
 on a brisk walking tour up and down her arm, 
 exactly as Cynthia herself had one time paced 
 the steamer deck—so many rounds making a 
 mile. She shooed him away, and the little rascal 
 balanced on the rim of her milk-glass, teetering 
 back and forth in utmost Chinese glee. “I’m 
 overwhelmed! I’m low in my mind over that 
 fly!’ Cynthia cried. 
 
 “What? One fly?” asked the Plain Gray 
 Lady. 
 
 “Oh, mercy no! But I’m multiplying him by 
 
 [ 283 ] 
 

 
 A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 all the flies in town. I’m seeing everybody’s 
 breakfast swarming with flies. I’m seeing the 
 markets with fruit and meat and fish all black and 
 buzzing with flies. I’m seeing babies with flies 
 marching in vast armies up and down their legs 
 and arms, climbing the mountains of their little 
 noses, crawling into the crater of their little 
 mouths. And I’m suddenly sick to death of flies. 
 Just sick to death of them. I think it’s time we 
 got rid of flies in this city!” 
 
 That was at breakfast. . 
 
 At prayers, immediately following, Amazing 
 Grace read the Nineteenth Psalm in her calm 
 lovely voice, the Blue Belles sitting with their 
 quiet hands resting on their little blue-cotton 
 trousers—looking as they always looked at 
 prayer-time: very sweet and quite too good to be 
 true! But this morning Cynthia’s fly came buzz- 
 ing through the doorway and went from Blue 
 Belle to Blue Belle, sitting on noses, sliding down 
 cheeks, tickling foreheads, buzzing here, buzzing 
 there. 
 
 Out of all that psalm, Amazing Grace selected 
 for her special text the verse: “ Keep back thy 
 servant also from presumptuous sins, let them 
 not have dominion over me.” 
 
 [ 284 ] 
 

 
 PRESUMPTUOUS CYN AND THE MANDARIN 
 
 “ Now what,” asked Amazing Grace, “ what is 
 a presumptuous sin?” 
 
 The Blue Belles wrinkled their dear yellow 
 brows into regular bow-knots as they thought 
 and thought. Cinnamon Flower said maybe it 
 meant taking something that didn’t belong to you! 
 Elegant Virtue said maybe it meant acting as 
 if you knew a lesson when the teacher knew you 
 didn’t! George said it was trying to do some- 
 thing too hard for a person of your particular 
 age and ability; (undoubtedly she was remember- 
 ing her dragon!) but this answer was so good 
 that Cynthia fell to thinking about herself: “ [’m 
 a Presumptuous Cyn every day of my life,” she 
 sighed, and just then the fly tickled her nose. 
 
 This was enough to set her thinking: Would it 
 be too presumptuous to try to rid this city of 
 flies? But when and where and how? When? 
 “Well, today!” vowed Cynthia. Where? 
 “ Why, in school of course!” How? Ah, that 
 was the puzzler. How indeed? But at this mo- 
 ment there came the sound of firecrackers, the 
 thumping of drums, and the tramp of feet on the 
 cobblestone street. Grandmother Gate-Woman 
 came padding in on her straw sandals to say: 
 “ That was the great Mandarin passing by. He 
 
 [ 285 ] 
 

 
 A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 
 
 has been on a visit and is just returning home 
 with all his chair-bearers and runners. But 
 Father God doesn’t want me to be afraid of a 
 Mandarin, I guess; so I just opened the gate and 
 handed him a tract. Was that all right? It 
 wasn’t too pushing, was it? Or too——” she 
 hesitated for the proper word. 
 
 “ Presumptuous! ” Cynthia supplied. “ Well, 
 no; I think, too, that if it wasn’t presumptuous 
 for you, certainly it can’t be presumptuous for 
 me, either. I'll begin with the Mandarin my- 
 self.” 
 
 But down in her heart Cynthia had a real awe 
 of this pompous, important gentleman, in his long 
 rich satin coat and his black cap with the peacock 
 feather— 
 
 “Stuck a feather in his cap 
 And called it mandarin—in,” 
 
 she quoted to herself occasionally. But today she 
 said: “ He’s just one man; he’s just one impor- 
 tant but ignorant man; he doesn’t know there is 
 any world worth copying outside the walls of his 
 city. He’s nothing but my little Buffalo Bill on 
 a bigger, more awe-inspiring scale. I must try to 
 win him over! ” 
 
 [ 286 ] 
 
PRESUMPTUOUS CYN AND THE MANDARIN 
 
 Aloud, to the Plain Gray Lady, she announced: 
 “You behold in me, Madam, the one and only 
 Board of Health in town. Moreover, I’m about 
 to begin my hygienic, prophylactic, sanitary ca- 
 reer this very moment! ” 
 
 “Congratulations! Might one inquire how 
 you will begin your operations? ” 
 
 “By a poster! Just like they do in our little 
 old U. S. A.—wait till you see it!” 
 
 She had not long to wait for Cynthia flew to 
 her room and hastily painted a truly enormous 
 fly in the very center of a piece of cardboard: he 
 was so very big and black that the little blue- 
 trousered child in one corner of the poster could 
 hardly be blamed for shivering in its boots as it 
 looked up in terror. In the opposite corner soon 
 appeared the slogan in Chinese: 
 
 SWAT THE FLY 
 AND 
 
 SAVE THE CHILD 
 
 When the school-bell rang she flew to her class- 
 room and lectured learnedly on flies: their habits, 
 the diseases they brought, the menace they were 
 to babies and children and grown-ups. The Blue 
 
 [ 287 ] 
 
£5. 
 
 A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 
 
 Belles sat with their mouths wide open, simply 
 fascinated. Cynthia was afraid the lecture might 
 have gone in one ear and out the other, so she ar- 
 ranged with Mr. Pepper for compositions on the 
 subject to be brought in the next day. Here are 
 the shortest and the longest, also the poorest and 
 the best: (the second one by George!) 
 
 FLIES 
 
 I wish to write about flies. There is one kind 
 called a spider, he sits up-stairs in a room and 
 makes webs. There are also blue-bottled flies in 
 barns. Flies eat things. Flies two wings can 
 fly fast. When we try to catch them we can't. 
 Some places have more flies, some less. We have 
 more. 
 
 THE FLy 
 
 Does the fly seem little? He is big when you 
 make an arithmetic add of 1 fly + 2 flies --num- 
 bers 3, 4, 5, 2,000, 10,000, and so on forever as 
 long as you can. Do his legs look silly? They 
 are fuzzy; on the fuzz he catches a special dirty 
 sickness from everything he touches and that 
 makes his legs a horrid thing to have touch any 
 one. 
 
 [ 288 ] 
 

 
 PRESUMPTUOUS CYN AND THE MANDARIN 
 
 
 
 Follow one fly one day. It is morning, he gets 
 out of bed. He sits on the dog’s tail. That is not 
 very nice, but nicer than when he sits on dog’s 
 nose. The nose is wet. The fly buzzes the house, 
 he crawls over the pig. The pig is covered with 
 street mud. The fly can hardly pull his legs 
 loose. That is also not nice. The fly crawls over 
 the beggar’s face. The beggar is a leper. This 
 is less nice than anything so far. Then the fly 
 goes to see baby boy. Baby boy is preciousness to 
 nice lady mother, but the fly does not care. He 
 tickles baby boy’s mouth with dirty legs. Off 
 those dirty legs come all the sicknesses gathered 
 from leper, mud, pig, dog, street. Baby boy 
 though precious falls sick; very too much sick. 
 Baby boy dies. Lady mother drops big tears out 
 of her eyes. Lady grandmother drops other 
 tears. Little fly boasts: “See what I do in 
 Chinese town! I walk into any rice-bowl I 
 please. I make everybody I please very too much 
 sick.” Well, it is too bad. The Shepherdess 
 could make a stop maybe. 
 
 When Mr. Pepper read the papers he nearly 
 fainted. “Greatly excuse me,” he said to Cyn- 
 thia, bowing, “I must apologize. The composi- 
 
 [ 289 ] 
 

 
 A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 
 
 tions are not good to read fora lady. They are 
 very unkindly. I am ashamed. My miserable 
 pupils should be spanked.” 
 
 “Tet’s spank the flies instead,” laughed Cyn- 
 thia. “I’m starting a crusade today, so please 
 give me all the compositions.” 
 
 The Plain Gray Lady read them delight- 
 edly: “ Wonderful! Wonderful!” she cried. 
 “George has found her second dragon to slay!” 
 
 Cynthia nodded, and that very afternoon she 
 went to the yamen to pay a visit to the Mandarin, 
 armed with the poster and those most unladylike 
 compositions, Amazing Grace chaperoning her. 
 The Mandarin was never so surprised in his life. 
 Imagine calling about—flies! He quoted a well- 
 known Chinese proverb at Cynthia: “‘ When 
 heaven rears aman he grows very fat; when men 
 rear a man he is but skin and bones.” Therefore 
 what canI do? What canIdo? If heaven wills 
 it, baby boys die.” 
 
 But Cynthia was very proud to be able to 
 quote another Chinese proverb in her turn: 
 “* Men’s hearts are like iron, and the rule of the 
 mandarins like a furnace.’ For your honor has 
 but to endorse our plan, and how the hearts of 
 the people will soften! And how many less 
 
 [ 290 ] 
 

 
 PRESUMPTUOUS CYN AND THE MANDARIN 
 
 
 
 funerals there will be in town—you could even 
 boast yourself of a great population where men 
 never die, where babies always grow to old age— 
 just imagine it!” 
 
 The Mandarin clasped his hands over his 
 stomach. He closed his eyes. It looked as if he 
 were certainly picturing the felicities of such a 
 town. Cynthia left him nodding his head 
 solemnly as if in approval; but she was not at all 
 sure about him, so she left the poster behind her. 
 On the way out toward the street she was im- 
 pressed anew by the loveliness of his quaint old 
 palace, for the gateways through his walls were 
 cut in shapes—some were circles, “ Moon Gate ”’; 
 some were cut like vases, “ Jar Gate”; his win- 
 dows had dragon patterns over them; his great 
 flagged courtyards were probably centuries old; 
 wisteria climbed his walls, and lovely roses. 
 “This is sheer fairyland,” she thought. And 
 then with a smile, added, “ But there’s a fly in 
 the ointment.” She hurried home and persuaded 
 Mr. Pepper to paint on a long red paper a true 
 story of what had been done in another Chinese 
 town. 
 
 The following afternoon Cynthia rolled the 
 three yards of story into a scroll and paid a 
 
 [291 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 second call on the Mandarin, with Amazing 
 Grace. She quoted a Chinese proverb at him: 
 “Past events are as clear as a mirror; future 
 events are as dark as lacquer.” 
 
 “True!” he said, clapping his hands over his 
 stomach and wagging the feather in his cap. 
 Cynthia unrolled the scroll and Amazing Grace 
 read the true story of the town of Tengchowfu 
 where once upon a time every plan known to 
 heathendom had been tried to rid the town of 
 cholera, yet the sick died daily by the hundreds. 
 The people even tried “ going over into a new 
 year” to deceive the gods and evil spirits into a 
 belief that the unlucky year was now past and a 
 new year had come for other good spirits to 
 rule. People put on their best clothes, they beat 
 drums, they fired firecrackers, they paid calls and 
 feasted exactly as if it were really New Year’s. 
 But the celebration only spread the cholera 
 quicker; from all over town people carried their 
 sick and laid them before the shrine of the god 
 of bewitchment, hoping he might cast off the 
 spell. But this only spread the cholera quicker. 
 Mourners were in the street day and night fol- 
 lowing funeral processions. Then into that town 
 came two Christian doctors who knew that flies 
 
 [ 292 ] 
 

 
 PRESUMPTUOUS CYN AND THE MANDARIN 
 
 were the chief agents in spreading the disease. 
 Two hospitals were started; flies were swatted 
 diligently; and after several months of wonder- 
 ful service that one town adopted for all time the 
 Christian’s way of health and safety. 
 
 The Mandarin nodded his head importantly. 
 “ Past events are as clear as a mirror,” he quoted 
 aloud, as Cynthia arose to depart, leaving the 
 three-yard story behind her. 
 
 But the third day she returned with six of her 
 Blue Belles, scrubbed as clean as could be—Fra- 
 grant Gentility dressed in her Sunday-go-to- 
 meeting purple pantaloons, of course. Each 
 Blue Belle carried a bright yellow placard. They 
 spoke their “ pieces” bravely, and tried not to 
 be worried by the majesty of the great man 
 before them. 
 
 “Tf you please, Your Honor,” began George, 
 the dragon-killer, “ we would like to start a fly- 
 killing contest in town. We six are going to see 
 who of us can get the most people to sign our 
 placards promising to ‘ swat the fly and save the 
 child.” We would be overcome with grateful 
 emotion if you would graciously condescend to 
 sign one of our placards yourself.” 
 
 At this point it was the Mandarin himself who 
 
 [ 293 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 was overcome with emotion: “ I never killed a fly 
 in my life!” he said pompously. 
 
 “ Flies,’ began George, “have very naughty 
 legs. In the fuzz they carry a special sickness 
 from everything they touch. The child of the 
 Magnificent Mandarin and the child of the thin 
 coolie are all alike to flies i 
 
 “Yes! Yes!” interrupted the Mandarin, 
 hastily. “I have read a paper stating all those 
 facts. Indeed, I have thought of nothing but flies 
 for three days.” | 
 
 “So have we!” beamed the Blue Belles, and 
 Fragrant Gentility stepped forward modestly: 
 “Perhaps you would sign here? ” 
 
 The Mandarin clapped his hands six times. In 
 came six secretaries. Such wonderful men! The 
 Blue Belles gasped with admiration. “ Sign your 
 names on those placards,” the Mandarin ordered. 
 The secretaries signed. “And now,” continued 
 the Mandarin, waving his hand in dismissal, “ I 
 hope this may be the end of the whole matter.” 
 
 “T hope so, too,” Cynthia agreed pleasantly. 
 “You have been more than gracious! I am lost 
 in the contemplation of your distinguished cour- 
 tesy. Certainly the like of this has never hap- 
 pened to me in my own country.” 
 
 [ 294 ] 
 
 
 
PRESUMPTUOUS CYN AND THE MANDARIN 
 
 The Mandarin was obviously much pleased. 
 “Of course,” as Cynthia explained later to the 
 Plain) Gray Wady, ~ 1 never have been in’ the 
 habit of visiting presidents or governors or even 
 mayors, at home. But I think he feels ’m a 
 person of some consequence.” 
 
 “And aren’t you?” smiled the Plain Gray 
 Lady. 
 
 The Fly Campaign was a great success. The 
 Blue Belles learned by heart George’s composi- 
 tion, and “‘orated” it with great eloquence to 
 many an astonished family. But Cynthia knew 
 that the idea had really taken when a certain 
 butcher, on the Street of the Seventy Honest 
 Merchants, covered his meat with mosquito- 
 netting and placed outside his shop a brilliant 
 green placard announcing boastfully, “ For sale 
 —meat on which a fly has never stepped! ”’ 
 
 [ 295 ] 
 

 

 
 The simplest way to make a pagoda is to cut from red card- 
 board two patterns of the pagoda front shown here; make them 
 very high so that they can be glued to the front and back sides 
 of a long narrow box in which girdles or stays have been bought. 
 Blacken the portion of the pagoda which is dark in this cut. 
 It is also possible to make extra shelving red roofs to slip through 
 slits at the narrowest part of each of the seven roofs; these can 
 then project at picturesque angles. To secure an evenly balanced 
 pattern fold a piece of newspaper, and beginning at the fold draw 
 one-half the pagoda. Cut this out, unfold, and outline it on the 
 red cardboard. 
 
 The old red-roofed pagoda which was a landmark just outside 
 the walls of Cynthia’s city was built centuries ago by a widow as 
 a memorial to her husband. 
 
mh i priate cooT 
 AWWA MAO DD 
 
 “To save one man’s life is better than to build a seven-storied 
 pagoda.” 
 
 “The loftiest towers rise from the ground.” 
 
 “Thatch your roof before rainy weather, dig your well before 
 you become parched with thirst.” 
 
XXI 
 THE CHAIR ON) THE ROOF 
 
 It was going to be a holiday. Or at least that 
 was what the Plain Gray Lady said it would be. 
 But as Cynthia sighed that night, “‘ If this is your 
 idea of a holiday, little saint, then what, oh what, 
 is your idea of a work-day?” The Plain Gray 
 Lady referred her to the dictionary, and tired 
 though she was, Cynthia opened it at the word 
 holiday and read, “‘ A holy-day.” 
 
 “Of course! That’s exactly what it has been, 
 a holy day. I shall never forget it as long as I 
 live.” Which was mostly due to old Deacon Ding 
 and the chair on his roof. 
 
 Deacon Ding was so very old that his long 
 white beard hung down on his chest like those 
 which you see on the patriarchs. His kind old 
 face was seamed and wrinkled until it looked like 
 the relief-map of some foreign country. If you 
 asked me what that country was, I should not 
 know what to say, but Deacon Ding would prob- 
 ably have chuckled, “ America.”’ He was very 
 fond of America, and one day the Plain Gray 
 
 [ 299 ] 
 

 
 A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 
 
 Lady had a letter from him, in English. It was 
 a very beautiful letter: 
 
 “Tam very gladly that you come back from 
 America on top. I thanking God that I can see 
 you once in this world bequickly. When you are 
 gone that makes us very sorrow. Now beg you 
 permitting me you come here to give me a good 
 Christian nourishment for my soul, for I know- 
 ing God does not let me burden this heavy laden 
 longer. The wemen of my village that you love 
 wish for their shepherdess and cry in the night 
 missing you.” 
 
 The Plain Gray Lady said at once: “ Suppose 
 we take a holiday tomorrow and ride out to see 
 him. It’s only six miles off.” 
 
 A basket of lunch was prepared, and early the 
 next morning Cynthia climbed into one sedan- 
 chair, the Plain Gray Lady into another. The 
 chair-bearers started off at a jog through the 
 narrow streets calling as usual: “Clear the 
 way!” “Scrape your shins!” ‘Open your 
 heads!” “ Chair coming!” The Street of the 
 Seventy Honest Merchants was beginning to 
 wake up as the merchants took down their shop 
 
 [ 300 | 
 
THE CHAIR ON THE ROOF 
 
 fronts, long gaudy signs flapped before each shop 
 —a giant boot before the shoe-store, a gilded fan 
 before a fan emporium. The coolies bore the 
 chair through the little narrow streets so full of 
 donkeys heaped high with baskets of vegetables, 
 of wheelbarrows heaped high with bundles and 
 lily-foot women, of pedlers heaped high with 
 brooms, pots, and pans, of sweetmeat-sellers. 
 Once outside the city gates, there was Buffalo 
 Bill to be seen on top of Two Horns, and old Aunt 
 Ling driving her flock of geese down the road- 
 way, while peasants were working knee-deep in 
 the rice-fields, and the slender old red-roofed 
 pagoda seemed to watch them with age-old indif- 
 ference: “ Peasants come and peasants go, but I 
 last on forever.” 
 
 At the first village the news spread like wild- 
 fire: “The Teacher! The Teacher! The 
 Teacher has come to town!” A crowd gathered, 
 and the Plain Gray Lady gave a Bible talk and 
 handed tracts to every one. Old women crowded 
 nearer to ask questions. Young women elbowed 
 up to tell her secrets. Children, too, had some- 
 thing special to be whispered in the Plain Gray 
 Lady’s ears. 
 
 “ At this rate, we shall never get to Deacon 
 
 [ 301 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 Ding’s,” smiled Cynthia, for the next village had 
 a school with an ex-Blue Belle teacher, a girl who 
 beamed with delight to show off her little classes 
 to the Real Teacher. Was she doing everything 
 properly? Was it wrong to spank Fragile Lily 
 for making faces so abominably at Old Pink 
 Jade? It was? Oh dear! Oh dear! She had 
 questions enough to last a week, and the Plain 
 Gray Lady promised to stop on the way back. 
 For she knew she must hurry to reach Deacon 
 Ding’s, and she knew she would be stopping all 
 along the way. 
 
 “ Look at that chair on the roof!” cried Cyn- 
 thia. “ What is it there for?” 
 
 “Ask Deacon Ding,” said the Plain Gray 
 Lady. The old man was delighted to see her. 
 He reminded Cynthia of Abraham when the 
 angels of the Lord came down to call—he was so 
 humble and so gracious. His grandchildren were 
 tremendously proud of him: “Grandpa,” they 
 said, “ the new Shepherdess has asked about the 
 chair. Tell her the whole story, right from the 
 very beginning.” 
 
 “ Well,” said Deacon Ding, “ there was once a 
 little boy, and he was lame. He did not matter 
 to any one; was he not the ninth son, and was he 
 
 [ 302 ] 
 

 
 THE CHAIR ON THE ROOF 
 
 
 
 not lame? Since the gods were evidently bored 
 and indifferent to him, the family was also. He 
 had kicks all day long, and slaps.” 
 
 “That little boy was Grandpa,” whispered 
 Tender Perfume softly, afraid that Cynthia 
 might not catch the point of the story. 
 
 “One day a foreign devil came to live in town. 
 Immediately the wells went dry, the chimneys 
 smoked, the whole luck changed. Men told each 
 other that the white man had magic power to 
 make himself invisible and slip in or out of closed 
 doors, he could poison rice in the rice-bowls one 
 mile off, he could stupefy children—do you won- 
 der that I, a little lame boy, was stiff with fright 
 whenever I saw himcoming? And yet it was this 
 foreign devil who saw me kicked out on the street 
 one day; he picked me out of the muddy gutter, 
 he carried me home with him. I expected any 
 minute to be stupefied and cooked up into soup 
 or medicine.” 
 
 The grandchildren giggled at Cynthia: “ Just 
 fancy!” 
 
 “ But he was very gentle to me,”’ Deacon Ding 
 nodded, “ he whittled me a pair of funny sticks 
 called crutches to help me walk, but all this time 
 he could not talk to me because he knew no 
 
 [ 303 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 Chinese. He would hold up a cup, and I would 
 say ‘cup’ in Chinese; he would write it down. 
 He touched chairs, tables, beds, chickens, books, 
 rice, until he had a long list of my brains on 
 paper. It made me nervous: ‘If he keeps on 
 spreading my brains on paper then I shall be 
 stupefied!’ I said. But he rubbed my poor lame 
 back every night so that I could rest on it with- 
 out pain, and while I taught him Chinese he 
 taught me—love. But one day the people mobbed 
 him, flogged him, and drove him out of town. I 
 could tell I had been bewitched because my heart 
 was twisted for the love of him. But years went 
 by, and he never came. I thought he had died 
 from our flogging. But I kept on reading his 
 little black Book. I read it to my parents, for 
 when I could walk they decided to take me back 
 home. My family liked the Book. We loaned it 
 to our neighbors. Our neighbors liked the Book. 
 Ten years went by. When the Boxers came to 
 town I baked the Bible in a loaf of bread in the 
 oven to hide it, and my parents were killed for 
 daring to have liked those words and because they 
 were unwilling to step on the Saviour’s cross. I 
 would have been killed, too, except that I was 
 lame again, now that I had outgrown the 
 
 [ 304 } 
 
SUE NEREeneneeeneeeeness eee 
 THE CHAIR ON THE ROOF 
 = ee 
 
 crutches. So the Boxers said, ‘ Just a stupid idiot 
 man, not worth troubling about.’ But when 
 they had gone I had no family left; I asked a go- 
 between to find me an inside person, and I got 
 married. I read her the book so that she could 
 be a Christian, too. We were very poor. We 
 nearly starved.” 
 
 “ He had to eat soup made from corn-cobs and 
 roots,” his grandchildren sighed sympathetically. 
 
 “Yes,” nodded old Deacon Ding, stroking his 
 beard. “Well, time went on. By and by the 
 white man came back to town with his inside per- 
 son and his grown daughter. She educated my 
 daughters. He came to sit in my home. It was 
 like heaven. He built a church, and I was his 
 first deacon. I have been a deacon ever since. 
 He kept on sitting in my house, opening up his 
 Book and telling me the wonders of his save-the- 
 world-doctrine until heaven came down and sat 
 also under our rooftree, just as the Bible says, 
 ‘Thy kingdom come on earth, asin heaven.’ Ten 
 years this happened. And then, from too many 
 journeys over swollen rivers, from too many 
 chillings afterward, from too many preachings 
 he grew so tired that God the Father leaned out 
 of the real heaven and said, ‘ You’d better come 
 
 [ 305 ] 
 
aaa, 
 
 A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 
 
 home and rest with me now.’ So he went home 
 to rest. And his special chair was very empty.” 
 
 “Tell what you said about it,’ urged his 
 younger listeners eagerly. 
 
 “T said to my family, ‘ Nobody is to sit on this 
 chair unless they are willing to be what the 
 Honorable Teacher was.’ So a long while went 
 by, then one day I found my oldest son on that 
 chair: ‘ Father, I am going to be a preacher,’ he 
 said. So sure enough, he is preaching now in 
 another province. Then by and by my second 
 son sat on the chair: ‘ Father, I would like to be 
 a teacher.’ Well, he is teaching in a Christian 
 school. Next my daughter sat on it: ‘ Father, I 
 would love to be a Christian doctor.’ This was a 
 big surprise, but she became a doctor. And when 
 the baby grew up he, too, sat on the chair: 
 ‘Father, I’m going to bea Christian singer.’ He 
 has a fine voice for God to use. But after that 
 there was nobody left under my rooftree to use 
 the chair, for my children were scattered far and 
 wide; so then I had it tied on the roof. A chair 
 on a roof does a lot of good. It preaches 
 sermons! ” 
 
 The grandchildren smiled: “ It’s grandfather 
 who preaches the sermons. You see, he can’t go 
 
 [ 306 ] 
 
THE CHAIR ON THE ROOF 
 
 out any more, he’s so crippled and lame. But 
 people passing by the house are sure to see the 
 chair, they come indoors to ask about it, and 
 grandpa gets as much of an audience as he wants. 
 But some day, when we get a little older, he says 
 he’s going to take it down and bring it indoors 
 so that we can sit on it; provided, of course, that 
 we decided to be God’s workers. I think we will, 
 don’t your” 
 
 You can see for yourself why this all seemed 
 like a holy day to Cynthia. Especially when she 
 said that night to the Plain Gray Lady, “ There’s 
 one thing I’ve wanted to ask you all day, who was 
 that missionary whose chair is on the roof?” 
 
 The Plain Gray Lady answered: “ He was my 
 father! I thought maybe you had guessed. It 
 was on that chair that I, too, pledged my life to 
 China.” 
 
 As Cynthia wrote home to her brother Bob: 
 “ Where will you find a Hallowe’en story like 
 this? Next Sunday tell your class about it and 
 I think they will want to sing all the verses of 
 
 For all Thy saints, who from their labors rest, 
 
 Who Thee by faith before the world confessed, 
 
 Thy name, O Jesus, be forever blest, 
 Hallelujah! Hallelujah!” 
 
 [ 307 ] 
 

 
oe oe el: 
 
 J 
 I 
 V7 
 
 Mere e why (2 
 ms ‘ te Race ah 
 i 
 
 This is what is going to happen on the ninth day of every 
 ninth moon in the new school of the new China Shepherd. All 
 the boys will observe Kites’ Day, and the kites will become quite 
 hopelessly tangled; but that will be half the fun, of course! 
 
 Undoubtedly these two are Glorious Fighter and Heavenly 
 Repose sent by their Granny to a school where even more 
 wonderful things can come out of the sky than pantaloons— 
 things like education and wisdom and comfort and peace. 
 
murat cT 
 
 e 
 
 WMA TH OO AT 
 
 “Those who chase kites, fall over straws.” 
 
 “ A man cannot become perfect in a hundred years; he may 
 become corrupt in less than a day.” 
 
 “One family builds a wall and two families get the benefit 
 of it.” 
 
XXII 
 ENTER THE CHINA SHEPHERD 
 
 Tue last thing that our China Shepherdess ex- 
 pected to meet on a Chinese street was a China 
 Shepherd! Indeed, the first time she met him she 
 had no least idea that he was a shepherd; and to 
 tell the truth, he had no least idea of it himself. 
 
 He says now that he was walking along that 
 slippery cobblestone street thinking only of kero- 
 sene-oil, when suddenly he found himself think- 
 ing only of Cynthia. For there she was! He 
 stood and stared at her. He had never in his life 
 seen any one like her! Because he was so large, 
 and because the street was so narrow, he com- 
 pletely blocked all traffic; exactly as a certain pig 
 had done once upon a time. And Cynthia, who 
 had not known how in the world to get the pig 
 out of the way, knew exactly how to deal with 
 the man! Especially a man who wore a straw 
 hat, a white starched collar, a brown necktie, and 
 a Palm Beach suit. 
 
 “ Excuse me,” she said in her best English, and 
 with very delicate sarcasm, “ might I pass? a 
 
 [311] 
 

 
 A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 
 
 It was all so perfectly ridiculous: two Ameri- 
 cans in a little Chinese walled city begging each 
 other’s pardon. Cynthia laughed first. Then the 
 man laughed. 
 
 “T had no idea that there were Americans in 
 this out-of-the-way place,” he exclaimed, “are 
 you traveling through somewhere?” He held 
 his hat under his arm and stared down at Cyn- 
 thia as if he had never seen a girl before. 
 
 “Traveling? Oh, no; just living here, thank 
 you!” she answered. This was so unbelievable 
 to him that she really had to ask him to come and 
 see for himself what the school was like. He 
 said, “‘ Why can’t I come now?” 
 
 The Plain Gray Lady soon found herself giv- 
 ing a very unexpected tea-party, and she really 
 had to smile up her sleeve at several things she 
 could not help but see on the young gentleman’s 
 face as he looked at Cynthia. “ Exactly as if she 
 were too good to betrue! As if she might vanish 
 into thin air any moment!” Whereupon she 
 sighed deeply, wondering if Cynthia really might 
 not vanish as far as the Heavenly Education-In- 
 stilling School was concerned. . . 
 
 Eating sandwiches hungrily, the caller began 
 to tell about his business: ‘‘ Our oil-cans are all 
 
 [312] 
 

 
 ENTER THE CHINA SHEPHERD 
 
 
 
 over China from the ocean to Tibet, and from 
 north to south as well. You really ought to see 
 the clever way the Chinese use those oil-cans 
 when the oil is gone—they roof their houses with 
 them, they use them for coffins for babies, they 
 hang a can at each end of a bamboo pole, and 
 behold! water-buckets! It’s a great business— 
 lighting China from end to end.” 
 
 Cynthia smiled at his enthusiasm: “ Lighting 
 China, indeed! Why, our company has been 
 lighting China before yours ever dreamed there 
 was such a place. A little oil in a lamp isn’t all 
 the light in China, sir! How about taking a poor 
 dull yellow Chinese face, tired and hopeless and 
 heathen, and putting such a light behind it that 
 mothers hardly recognize their own daughters.” 
 
 “T don’t q-quite understand,” Tee the 
 Oil Man apologetically. 
 
 “Tet me show you!” Cynthia pith and led 
 him to Grandmother Gate-Woman, pointing to 
 the old woman with much pride: “ She’s putting 
 more light in this town this moment than all your 
 oil-cans could put in a year.” She showed him 
 how the old woman was talking through the gate 
 to the broom pedler. Then she showed him 
 Silver Dew Drop asleep in her hammock on 
 
 [ 313 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 Grandmother Gate-Woman’s porch. “ There’s 
 a lamp who’s getting filled at our school; a lamp 
 that helped make your silk necktie for you, too.” 
 (He stroked his tie as if to feel what a Dew 
 Drop had made of the job!) ‘ And there go Five 
 Little Peppers scampering home—more lighted 
 lamps, brimming over with the oil of gladness. 
 No Foolish Virgins about them! Let me tell you 
 about their front door 8 
 
 The Oil Man listened eagerly. 
 
 Then Cynthia took him to Amazing Grace. 
 “T want to show this gentleman the part of our 
 school where we make the greatest light in town. 
 Where will I find it? ” Amazing Grace looked all 
 around the courtyard thoughtfully, then she 
 beckoned him to follow her. “ Childrens!” she 
 beamed in her quaint careful English. ‘ There 
 are nothings more lighter than little Chinese chil- 
 drens; see, I make you a show of our new kinder- 
 gartens. Bow, little childrens, bow! ” 
 
 Fifteen plump little Blue Jackets bent in the 
 middle and formed perfect loops of themselves 
 to do honor to the glorious stranger. The 
 glorious stranger wondered if they were not 
 really dolls, their eyes were so bias, their cheeks 
 so tan, their hair so straight in bangs. But when 
 
 [ 314 ] 
 
 
 

 
 ENTER THE CHINA SHEPHERD 
 
 they opened their mouths and sang with all their 
 might he knew that they were human beings. 
 
 Amazing Grace explained about them: “ Chi- 
 nese mamma have got one big love over her baby 
 —‘ Nicer baby could not be in all China!’ she 
 boast. See? Well, give me that baby every day 
 one little while. I put a song in him. I puta 
 Bible in him. I put a clean wash on him. Then 
 I send him home. My, what surprises that 
 mamma are got over little clean-to-death baby. 
 She must come church and find out all about this 
 good Jesus. That make much light in this town. 
 Very much light. See?” 
 
 But I fear that the Oil Man could see nothing 
 on earth but Cynthia just then. Presently he told 
 her all this; and since time was so short and China 
 so big and his oil so necessary, could she and 
 would she marry him please, and spend the rest 
 of her life lighting China, in his way? 
 
 Cynthia became very pink. And then very 
 white. But she said she was sorry—it was quite 
 impossible. She felt that her way of lighting 
 China was the only way for her! She—really— 
 could—not— possibly—exchange—it— for—his. 
 (The dashes are simply to show you what a 
 dreadfully hard sentence this was to say to such 
 
 [315 ] 
 
EES 
 
 A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 aE 
 
 a wonderful Oil Man. He was so very nice! He 
 was so completely unexpected! He was every- 
 thing a man should be! Except, of course, his 
 business. ) 
 
 “ But you don’t really mean this, do you?” he 
 asked. 
 
 “Tndeed, Ido! Indeed, Ido! You see, ’man 
 enthusiast, too. Until I came here I had no idea 
 what the Bible meant when it said that the people 
 who sit in darkness have seen a great light. But 
 I found this little city full of darkness—do you 
 suppose kerosene-oil can ever give the kind of 
 light to take fear out of people’s lives? Will it 
 ever stop firecracker insurance? Or save front 
 doors? Or take down kitchen gods and door 
 gods? Will it slay dragons? Will it warm the 
 heart that is five-jackets-cold? Or save little 
 Mah Jong cry-babies? Or swat flies? Why, 
 there isn’t kerosene enough in all the world to 
 make Granny’s coffin seem less empty and dark! 
 And tell me if there’s a chair on any roof in 
 China in memory of a kerosene-oil agent?” 
 
 The Oil Man shook his head. He had to go 
 away; alone. “ Good-bye, little China Shep- 
 herdess.”’ 
 
 “ Good-bye,” she said. It was a very blue day 
 
 [ 316] 
 

 
 ENTER THE CHINA SHEPHERD 
 
 
 
 for both of them. Also a blue week, and a blue 
 month. The little spring went out of Cynthia’s 
 heels, the lovely violet light went out of her eyes. 
 The Blue Belles began to worry dreadfully. 
 
 George said fiercely: “ Not sick. Not cross. 
 Not anything that pill-bottles could help, nor 
 parties. We should pray Father God, I think.” 
 And they all prayed; hard. 
 
 One day, five months later, a little package 
 came to Cynthia. She remembered the Christ- 
 mas star which had also come in the mail and 
 gone astray. She was glad to have this precious 
 package safe, for inside it lay a little Dresden 
 china shepherd, with a card: “ Coming on Thurs- 
 day the twelfth to marry my China Shepherdess.” 
 That was all it said. But it was quite enough. 
 The violet came back to Cynthia’s eyes. The 
 spring came back to her heels. Andon Thursday 
 the twelfth the China Shepherd came. He was 
 just the Oil Man, of course. 
 
 “T lost my job,” he told the Plain Gray Lady 
 before Cynthia came into the room. 
 
 “To0 bad!” she sympathized. “And you 
 were such a fine agent, I thought. However did 
 you lose it?” 
 
 “By giving it up to enlist as a China Shep- 
 
 [ 317 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 herd,” he answered. For would you believe it? 
 All the sights which Cynthia had shown him to 
 prove how she too was lighting China had made 
 an unforgetable impression. No oil-can seemed 
 equal to the power hidden in those little human 
 lamps in Cynthia’s care. He wrote all this to his 
 Mission Board in America: “I don’t know 
 whether you care to take me on or not, for I’m 
 not a preacher nor a teacher, although I’ve had a 
 college education and own a Phi Beta Kappa 
 key. Also, ?m going to marry one of your own 
 missionaries. And here are the points in my 
 favor.” 
 
 He gave a list of all the things that he could 
 do, adding: “ You see, I’m fairly well equipped to 
 tackle Chinese boys. I might also add that when 
 I was a little chap myself I had to memorize whole 
 chapters of the Bible, and to my surprise I find 
 more evidences every day that it is a missionary 
 book from cover to cover. Why did nobody ever 
 tell me this before? Imagine a boy being allowed 
 to grow up without knowing that every book in 
 the New Testament was written by a foreign 
 missionary! That the Acts of the Apostles are 
 nothing more nor less than a missionary’s jour- 
 nal! That every one of Jesus Christ’s twelve 
 
 [ 318 ] 
 

 
 ENTER THE CHINA SHEPHERD 
 
 
 
 apostles became a missionary except the one who 
 became a traitor in order to earn thirty pieces of 
 silver. Personally, I’m not aiming to earn any 
 more pieces of silver by being a traitor to the 
 biggest business on earth, the business of re- 
 demption which Jesus Christ came on earth to 
 begin. It has just struck me forcibly that I 
 couldn’t even have sold oil in China if missiona- 
 ries had not first opened up the country before 
 me, using oil in their own homes until the Chinese 
 wanted some for themselves. I might add that 
 I know the Chinese language and admire the 
 Chinese thoroughly as a patient people, reliable, 
 friendly, Bee ous: and fine. Let me know if 
 you can use me.’ 
 
 Let him know! Cablegrams are expensive, but 
 that Mission Board was only too delighted to 
 cable: “ Yes. City of Clouds.” For they had 
 been trying for years to start work for boys in 
 that walled city; and here was the very man to 
 build their school and teach it. 
 
 Therefore the China Shepherd and the China 
 Shepherdess started at once to build, both the 
 school and also a little home of their own next 
 door. Buffalo Bill deserted Two Horns and 
 simply haunted the premises. He saw himself 
 
 [ 319 ] 
 
A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 enrolled as the first scholar! But he was worried 
 over something: “ You must keep the workmen 
 happy or they will work a magic,” he warned 
 Cynthia. 
 
 “Nonsense!” she said loftily. It was really 
 appalling to him how careless she was about safe- 
 guarding herself. Not only in the matter of 
 violets picked at sunset-time, but also in other 
 matters even more risky. It was a relief to him 
 that she had at last become a Walk Behind; for 
 men of course had more sense. He hurried to 
 warn the China Shepherd: “If you don’t treat 
 the workmen well they can destroy you, and your 
 Honorable Inside Person as well.” 
 
 “ How’s that, my boy? ” 
 
 Buffalo Bill whispered in a ghostly fashion: 
 “The minute you pay them off they will secretly 
 draw the picture of a huge tiger on the inside of 
 the devil screen before your front door. Well, in 
 you walk, you and your Walk Behind; Zip! out 
 will jump that tiger and gobble you both up!” 
 
 The China Shepherd tried not to laugh. “I 
 shall be careful to treat the workmen well,” he 
 said. 
 
 Buffalo Bill heaved a sigh of relief. What a 
 satisfaction it was to talk things over as man to 
 
 [ 320 ] 
 
ENTER THE CHINA SHEPHERD 
 
 man. He beamed broadly, showing what Cyn- 
 thia called his ‘‘ 19-tooth-smile.” ‘“ Then I have 
 no doubt that the workmen will work a charm 
 for you! Probably they will bury two cold 
 chisels in your courtyard, one on each side of the 
 front door. It’s a splendid charm, because at 
 dusk the chisels change into two horrible black- 
 faced genii who will guard your door through all 
 the night.” 
 
 At this further display of superstition the new 
 missionary pulled Buffalo Bill to a seat on a pile 
 of lumber beside him. It was a five-jackets-cold 
 day and the little fellow looked like a smoking 
 chimney in the freezing air. “ Now look here, 
 boy, there isn’t a cold chisel in all China that 
 could save me or a chalk tiger that could hurt 
 me. If you intend to come to my school you'll 
 have to learn that Jesus Christ alone is a boy’s 
 best friend.” 
 
 “ Yes, sir,” agreed Buffalo Bill as man to man. 
 Not that he believed in the statement, but it was 
 an immense satisfaction to have a man on the 
 premises. Indeed, I think it was a great satisfac- 
 tion to the China Shepherdess, too, as well as to 
 her little Boughten Baby. 
 
 On the day when they moved into their little 
 
 [ 321 ] 
 

 
 A CHINA SHEPHERDESS 
 
 
 
 new house beside the school, Cynthia stood a long 
 while looking out of the gateway along the 
 crooked narrow street with its crooked gloomy 
 houses. There were pedlers walking past, and 
 beggars, and barbers, and chair-bearers, old 
 women being trundled in wheelbarrows, rich 
 women hidden inside sedan-chairs, poor women 
 hobbling past on foot—an endless procession— 
 always more pedlers, and beggars, and bar- 
 bers, and chair-bearers, wheelbarrows and sedan- 
 chairs, old persons, and little children, the un- 
 ceasing stream of China’s millions. 
 
 With a very special look on her face she went 
 indoors and hung on the wall this little framed 
 verse by Daniel Henderson; then, with the 
 Boughten Baby in her arms, she and the China 
 Shepherd read it aloud together, in the dusk: 
 
 HyMNn For A HOUSEHOLD 
 
 Lord Christ, beneath Thy starry dome 
 We light this flickering lamp of home, 
 And where bewildering shadows throng 
 Uplift our prayer and evensong. 
 
 Dost Thou, with heaven in Thy ken, 
 Seek still a dwelling-place with men, 
 Wandering the world in ceaseless quest ? 
 O Man of Nazareth, be our guest! 
 
 [ 322 ] 
 

 
 ENTER THE CHINA SHEPHERD 
 
 Lord Christ, the bird his nest has found, 
 The fox is sheltered in his ground, 
 But dost Thou still this dark earth tread 
 And have no place to lay Thy head? 
 Shepherd of mortals, here behold 
 
 A little flock, a wayside fold 
 
 That wait Thy presence to be blest— 
 O Man of Nazareth, be our guest! 
 
 THE END. 
 
 [ 323 ] 
 
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