Ancestors: A Novel

by Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

  XII

  Gwynne, on the following day, was making a late toilet, and in anythingbut a good-humor, for he had grown accustomed to early rising, when hereceived a note from Isabel.

  It ran:

  DEAR PARTNER,--Anabel has just told me over the telephone that Tom and Mr. Leslie and two other representative citizens are going out to see you this afternoon. I have the ghost of an idea that a friendly call is not their only object. _Do_ be plastic--it is better in the beginning--until you know your ground. Above all, don't be too English. You are vastly improved, but you have lapses.

  I send you your share of the ducks. Mariana's roasting will explain our pride in one of the two most native of our products--the next time we go to San Francisco I'll take you to the market and we will sit in a grimy little balcony restaurant and you will be introduced to fried California oysters.

  Please consider the marsh your own; and whenever you come, remember that you are to have breakfast or supper with me. Are you quite comfortable? If anything is wrong I will go over and interview Mariana and the Jap. Of course the latter will appropriate your cigarettes and books; he is probably a prince, and far from condescending to steal, he will take them as his right; and his hauteur may match your own at times. Moreover, he may decamp any morning without giving notice--Lafcadio Hearn dwells upon the _impermanency_ of the Japanese, and we can all bear him out. But on the other hand the Jap will keep your house cleaner than any other sort of servant, and he can be both amiable and alert when he chooses. I merely warn you, for I know nothing of your present _homme de chambre_ beyond the recommendation of my Chuma, who is amiable to the verge of imbecility. If he disappears, let me know at once, for I really want to make you comfortable and contented in what I know must seem to you little more than a beautiful wilderness peopled by ambitious barbarians. But wait till you know San Francisco!

  ISABEL.

  Gwynne smiled at the form of address and the expressions of concern inhis welfare; but he scowled twice over the admonition to be plastic andAmerican.

  "I'll be what I damn please," he announced, aloud, much to the surpriseof Imura Kisaburo Hinomoto who entered at the moment with his shavingwater.

  Nevertheless, when his visitors arrived, late in the afternoon, hisnatural courtesy, and the reflection that he had not come to America tofail, induced him to receive the four with something like warmth, and toplace his cigars and whiskey--he already knew better than to offer themtea--at their immediate disposal. They sat on the porch facing themountain, and for a few moments the conversation was confined to theweather and the scenery, giving Gwynne an opportunity to observe hisguests with some minuteness. Judge Leslie and young Colton he hadalready met, and he liked the former, a pleasant shrewd tactful man, whowas one of the chief ornaments of the northern bar, and universallyadmitted to be "dead straight." So "straight," indeed, was he that histerm of judgeship had been brief. He had been carried to the bench on anindependent ticket, but the reform movement subsiding, he could obtainre-election only by bargaining with political bosses, and this herefused to do; but after the fashion of the country he retained histitle. He had a loose hairy benignant face with a humorous butpenetrating eye and the usual domelike brow. His body had grown unwieldyfrom years and lack of exercise, and his clothes were old-fashioned and,generally, dusty. He voted the Republican ticket and was not too wellpleased with his son-in-law who was a red Democrat and rising daily inthe good graces of the party bosses.

  This young man who was sipping his plain soda and commenting on neitherthe scenery nor the weather, had inspired Gwynne with a certain interestand curiosity. He was thirty but looked little over twenty, and hislarge limpid blue eyes were as guileless as a child's. He had a longpale face with an indifferent complexion and the common American lanternjaw. His hair and brows and lashes were paler than straw, and his longlank figure was without either distinction or muscularity. Nevertheless,there was a curious suggestion of cynical power in his impassive faceand lolling inches, and Gwynne had made up his mind that he would beuseful as a study in politics.

  Mr. Wheaton, one of the present "City Fathers," a position he hadoccupied with brief intermittences for many years, had hard china-blueeyes and a straight mouth, in a large square smoothly-shaven face. Hehad crossed the plains in the Fifties from the inhospitable State ofMaine, sought fortune in the gold diggings with moderate success,avoided San Francisco with a farmer's dread of "sharpers," and driftingto the hamlet at the head of Rosewater Creek had opened a small storefor general merchandise. Frugality and a shrewd knowledge of what menwanted and women thought they wanted had increased his capital sorapidly that in five years he had converted a wing of the store into abank. To-day he was a power. His wife was the leader of Rosewatersociety and attended first nights in San Francisco.

  Mr. Larkin T. Boutts was new to Gwynne, although his status was easilyto be inferred from the constant references in the local press. He was afat little man who sat habitually with a hand on either knee, which heclawed absently both in conversation and thought. Otherwise his attitudewas one of extreme repose, even watchfulness. He was excessively neat,almost fashionable in his dress, which--Gwynne was to observe in thecourse of time--was invariably brown. He had a small pointed beard and asharp direct dishonest eye. He was the leading hardware merchant ofRosewater and owned the hotel and the opera-house. His business methodshad never been above criticism, and his politics drove the San Franciscocorrespondent, during legislative sittings, into a display of causticvirtue which gave the newspaper he represented just the necessary smackof reform and did not hurt its inspiration in the least. For Mr. Bouttswas too sharp for the law, and all his sins were forgiven him on accountof his genuine devotion to Rosewater. Far from battening on her, afterthe fashion of the San Francisco cormorant, he had never taken a dollarout of her that he had not returned a hundred-fold, and he was theauthor of much of her wealth.

  This gentleman was the first to indicate that they had not driven outto Lumalitas to discuss the weather and the scenery.

  "Best come to business," he said, abruptly. "Judge, will you do thetalking?"

  But Judge Leslie, who was a modest man, waved his hand deprecatingly."The idea is yours, sir, and yours is the right to state the case."

  The host hastily poured whiskey-and-soda lest he should look haughtilyexpectant.

  "It's just this, Mr. Gwynne," began Boutts, in his suave even tones. "Wehave seen your ads. We know that you contemplate selling off a good partof your ranch--Well, there was a buzz round town when those ads wereread, and I was not long passing the word that there would be amass-meeting that night in Armory Hall. That's where we thresh thingsout, and in this case there was no time to lose. We had a pretty fullmeeting. Judge Leslie took the chair, and I opened with some of the mostpointed remarks I ever made. I was followed with more unanimity thanusually falls to my lot. The upshot was that resolutions were passedbefore nine o'clock, and a committee of four was appointed to wait uponyou to-day--and endeavor to win you to our point of view," he continued,suddenly lame, for by this time Gwynne, forgetting Isabel and his goodresolutions, was staring at the common little man with all the arroganceof his nature in arms, and the color rising in his cheeks. Mr. Boutts'shands gripped his knees as if for anchorage, and he proceeded, firmly:"No offence, sir, I assure you. This is a free country. The man whotells another man what he'd orter do should be called down good andhard. Nothing could be further from our intention. The meeting wascalled only in the cause of what you might call both self-defence andpatriotic local sentiment, although it's a sentiment that's local toabout two-thirds of California--only we do more acting and less talkingthan most. It's now some weeks since we adopted resolutions in a stillbigger mass-meeting and got the best part of the county to subscribe tothem; on the ground that an ounce of prevention and so forth. So we justhoped that as you have come to live among us you could be brought
to seethings from our point of view."

  He scraped his chair forward and dropped his voice confidentially, atthe same time darting a sharp glance through the open window beside him."It's this Japanese business. The Chinese, back in the Seventies, wasnot a patch on it, because the Chinee never aspired to be anything buthouse servants, fruit pickers, vegetable raisers and vendors on a smallscale, and the like. The agitation against them which led to theexclusion bill was wholly Irish; that is to say it was entirely aworking-class political agitation, because the Chinee was doing betterwork for less money than the white man. The better class liked theChinee and have always regretted the loss of them; and to-day those whoare left, particularly cooks and workers on those big reclaimed islandsof the San Joaquin River, where they raise the best asparagus in theworld--yes, in the world, sir--get higher wages than any white man orwoman in the State.

  "But these Japs are a different proposition. They're slack servants,unless they happen to be a better sort than the majority, and thatunreliable you never know where you are with them. And being servants isabout the last ambition they've come for to this great and gloriouscountry. They're buyin' farms all up and down the rivers, the mostfertile land in the State, to say nothing of some of the interiorvalleys. You see, there were big grants like Lumalitas at first over agood part of California. Then the ranches of thousands of acres were cutup and sold into farms of three or four hundred acres that paid like themischief so long as the old man stuck to business himself. This hegenerally did; but times have changed, and now all the young men want togo to town; and most of the big farms have been cut up into little onesand sold off to immigrants and the like. Well, that's the Japs' lay.They like things on a small scale and know how to wring a dollar out ofevery five-cent piece. No one's denying they're smart. They slid in andgot a good grip before we thought them worth looking at. Now we'resaddled with about thirty thousand of them, and more coming on everysteamer from Honolulu and Japan. Some years ago when they began to findthemselves as a nation, and to rebel at the foreigners that were rulingthings through the open ports, they let it be pretty well known that itwas going to be Japan for the Japanese. Well, now the sooner they knowthat it's California for the Californians the better it will be for allhands. We don't go round lookin' for trouble, but if it comes our way wedon't mind it one little bit. We'll tolerate the Japs just in so far aswe find them useful, and useful they are as servants; for if they don'thold a candle to the old Chinee, they're a long sight better than ourlazy high-toned hired girls, who are good for just exactly nothing; andwe need a certain amount of them for hire in other fields; but ascitizens, not much. We've put a stop to that right here, in this countyat least; and so, Mr. Gwynne, that's the milk in the cocoanut, and wehope that you'll see things our way, and not sell any of your land tothe Japs."

  "You see," interposed Judge Leslie, that Gwynne might not feel himselfrushed to a decision. "These little men, while possessing so manyadmirable traits that I am quite willing to take off my hat to them, arenot desirable citizens in a white man's country. Not only is their wholeview of life and religion, every antecedent and tradition, exactlyopposed to the Occidental, so that we never could assimilate them, nevereven contemplate their taking a part in our legislation nor marrying ourdaughters, but--and for the majority of the people this is the crux ofthe whole matter--commercially and industrially they are a menace. Withtheir excessive frugality they can undersell the most thrifty white man,both as farmers and merchants; and the contempt they excite,particularly in this state of extravagant traditions, is as detrimentalin its effects as their business methods; the more a man exercises hisfaculty for contempt the more must his general standards sink towardpessimism, and pessimism is neither more nor less than a confession offailure in the struggle with life. I never was much of a fighter, so Ibelieve in eliminating the foe whenever it is possible. At all events wehave made up our minds to eliminate the Jap, what with one motive andanother, and I think we will. It may come to war in time--when theUnited States are ready--but we Californians have a way of takingmatters into our own hands, and as war is a remote possibility, and wehave little prospects of legislation--what with the treaty and theunpreparedness of the country for war--we just do what we can to freezethe Japs out. If we must have small farmers and our own young men haveother ambitions, there are plenty of good European immigrants, and itis our business to encourage them. We assimilate anything white soquickly it is a wonder an immigrant remembers the native way ofpronouncing his own name. But the Oriental we can't assimilate, for allour ostrich-like digestion, and what we can't assimilate we won't have.It is also true that we don't like the Jap. He antagonizes us with hisill-concealed impertinence under a thin veneer of servility; andsuperior as he is, still he has a colored skin. Now, right or wrong,Christian or merely natural, we despise and dislike colored blood, everydecent man of us in this United States of America. Your sentimentalistscan come over and wonder and write about us, reproach us and do theirhonest ingenuous best to convert us, it never will make _one damned bitof difference_. We are as we are and that is the end of it. Theantagonism, of course, only leaps to life when the colored man wantsequal rights and recognition, something he will never get in the UnitedStates of America, as long as the stripes and the stars wave over it;and the sooner the sentimentalists quit holding out false hopes thebetter. As to the Chinese, it is quite true that there was no objectionto them outside of politics. And the reason was, they kept their place.The antipathy to the Japanese extends throughout all classes. Everythinking man in the State is concerned with the question. Californiawill be overrun with them before we know where we are; and we are hopingthat other counties will give an ear to the wisdom and farsightednessMr. Boutts has displayed, in proposing that no more land shall besold--or rented--to the Japanese. They can work for us if we have needof them, for a while, but they cannot settle."

  Gwynne had been thinking rapidly as Judge Leslie drawled out hishomily. In his new apprehension of latent weaknesses in his character hewas indisposed to yield to pressure, but he was equally desirous not tolet the turmoil into which his inner life had been thrown lead him toany ridiculous extremes; not only interfering with his prospects, butconverting himself into chaos. He was extremely anxious to make nomistakes at the outset of his new career, beset with difficultiesenough. Their words had every appearance of being a just presentment ofa just cause. He didn't care a hang about the "Jap." For the matter ofthat, he reflected with some bitterness, he didn't care a hang aboutCalifornia. At this point in his reflections he became aware that Coltonwas turning his head with a sort of slow significance. He looked up andwatched a pale eyelash drop over a deep gleam of intelligence. Mr.Leslie finished speaking, and Gwynne replied with an elaboratepoliteness, which might be his vehicle for spontaneous sympathy or utterindifference.

  "Thank you all very much for your confidence in me, and also forpreventing me from making what no doubt would have been a seriousmistake. I have no desire whatever for the Japanese as a neighbor. I wasone of the few to recognize the menace of Japan to Occidentalcivilization when all the world was sympathizing with it during its warwith Russia, and they will get no encouragement from me. So the matteris settled as far as I am concerned."

  "Shake!" said Mr. Wheaton, in a deep rumbling voice.

  The four shook hands solemnly with their new neighbor, then, with even agreater gusto, drank his health. Gwynne suddenly remembering theCalifornia tradition, and the ducks, invited them to remain for supper;but all declined except Colton, who sent his wife a message by hisfather-in-law. The other three climbed into Judge Leslie's surrey anddeparted, Colton remarking, apologetically, and somewhat wistfully:

  "She's dining at the judge's and won't miss me: I never leave her alone.I'll get back in time to take her home."