On Gold Mountain

by Lisa See

  Each member had an interest of five hundred dollars in the firm, bringing the total capital to four thousand dollars, but these amounts were fictitious. Certainly Fong Ken, who languished on the steamer awaiting entry based on the establishment of his merchant status, could not have had such a magnificent sum in his possession. One thing is certain: although the company was listed as a partnership, Fong See was clearly the owner and mastermind behind this official document. His photograph is the only one that appears on this agreement, as well as on all subsequent business documents until the government decided to stop keeping track of Chinese-owned businesses. Fong See was the sole proprietor; the others were merely partners on paper as a means of establishing their merchant status.

  In other huis, partners drew lots to see who would get to use the money, but Fong See had convinced his brothers and the others in the firm that he was the boss. He had “bamboo in his chest”; that is, he was a man confident in his work and skill. Fong See’s older brothers, cousins, father, and friends saw that he was the only one among them who had the confidence and courage to go forward. He had a vision of how things should be and he pursued it.

  On May 3, 1894, with his merchant status now affirmed, Fong See applied to the Collector of Internal Revenue for the Fourth District of California, and was granted a certificate of legal residency, number 130020, issued to a “person other than a laborer.” Soon after, the Suie On Company—or the Curiosity Bazaar, as it was still known by its customers—moved to 723 K Street, in the Oshner Building. Fong See owned four sewing machines and had as many as ten men working for him. Business was thriving.

  “Letticie, take Donna and Georgia outside for a while. They’re bored and I need to rest a spell. Come back in an hour to start dinner.”

  “But I have homework,” Ticie Pruett said to her sister-in-law, Jennie, who was already slipping off her high-button boots and lying back on the bed. Ticie shrugged. She wanted so badly to have an education. She was good at arithmetic. Her teacher at the school in Central Point—perhaps realizing that Ticie would one day have to support herself—had taught her simple bookkeeping. The problem was that, with all her housework, Ticie couldn’t get her homework done and was always late for school. The boys teased her about it—“Ooooh! Look who’s late again!” She hated it when they made fun of her.

  Ticie took the children outside as she was told. They sat down in the cool shade of the cottonwoods that lined the drive. It was early June and already hot as a blister. At five and three years of age, Donna and Georgia didn’t mind playing with each other and soon occupied themselves looking for rocks and building little piles with them. Toying with a strand of her auburn hair, Ticie glanced back at the house, where a tobacco plant climbed over the cook shed. She sighed. There was no point in making a fuss. It had been this way since Jennie had married Ticie’s older brother, Irvin, after their father died.

  Ten years ago, when she was eight, the family had gone to the county races. There wasn’t much to do out here except work, so the family had always enjoyed these diversions. Their religion did not forbid racing so long as no wagering was involved, so John Pruett, an avid horseman, entered a one-horse buggy race. It had been raining, and when they got home her father complained of cold. Within the week, he contracted pneumonia and died. Everyone said it was just like what happened to her mother, but Letticie couldn’t remember anything about it. All she knew was that she’d loved her father. He’d nicknamed her Ticie. She was still called that at school, but never at home. Her father was the only one who had truly loved her.

  Ticie hadn’t been old enough to take care of a house full of men, so Irvin had married Jennie Garrett, who’d been born in Montana. The Garrett family had thought they’d find luck out west, but it hadn’t worked out that way. The Garretts had been poor, and Jennie had brought nothing to the marriage except her ability to run a household, which she did until Ticie was old enough.

  A year later, Ticie’s third brother, Charles, got married. Melinda Cox’s family had come out early from Tennessee and homesteaded good land. Upon their marriage, Charles was given 286 choice acres abutting the foothills where they raised grain, alfalfa, and fruit. The couple had two children, Mabel, now aged six, and Guy, aged three. Melinda wasn’t nearly as awful as Jennie. Letticie figured that Melinda knew how to be gracious because she’d had to be kind to the farmhands when she was growing up. Jennie, on the other hand, was as poor as a church mouse and as mean as a rattlesnake.

  After Ticie’s nieces and nephews had been born, she’d been shuttled from one farm to the other. With each baby they expected her to do more work. “Change baby.” “Feed baby.” “Wash out these diapers. Scrub them good.” She didn’t mind doing chores. She was used to it, in fact; the problem was how they asked her. No, they didn’t ask her, they ordered her. Churn the butter! Make the beds! Do the wash! Feed the chickens! Mend the clothes!

  Her closest brother, John William, had just married Effie Caster. Ticie had been the witness. She’d always loved John best, but now he had someone to love him, and he no longer paid Ticie any attention. She couldn’t blame him for it. The point was none of them loved her or cared for her. She was alone in this family. An outcast.

  She wasn’t a bit like any of them. She remembered how enraged her brothers and the neighbors had been when the railroad was being built. “I hate those chinks they’ve got coming around here,” Irvin used to say after Sunday dinner, even though everyone at the table knew that the Chinese had panned for gold along the Rogue River long before any of them came to Oregon.

  “You coming with us tomorrow night?” Charles might ask, when a gang of farmers got together at night to pull up the rails that were laid during the day.

  In her dim memory—or maybe it was just that she’d heard her brothers talk about it—she remembered when the miners on Jackass Creek had stoned the Chinese, burned their cabins, and jumped their claims. John Miller had shot one of the Chinese in the back, but he’d gotten clean away with it because “it served that Chinaman right. He got what was coming to him.” She thought of the Chinese men she’d seen working on the railroad or on neighboring farms. She wasn’t afraid to look right into their faces, many of them scarred either from birth or from the hardships they’d found here. In their eyes she saw a mirror of the same loneliness she’d felt for so many years.

  At school, the teacher let her look through The Democratic Times—just one large sheet of paper folded in the middle which gave the news of the valley and the world. Ticie always skipped the “Central Point Pointers” section, because what news could be there that she cared about? She turned instead to “Foreign News” and “News Nuggets Picked up West of the Sierras,” and read the reports of the rail extensions connecting county to county, state to state.

  There was a world out there, and Ticie Pruett longed to be a part of it. She’d been saving whatever she could from her allowance and from the occasional odd job she did for neighbors. She knew it wasn’t much, but it would get her as far as Sacramento. (She’d dreamed of San Francisco, but she’d read it was too expensive.) Her one bag of clothes was packed. Tonight, while the others slept, she’d leave the farm and all the people who’d been callous toward her, walk into Central Point, and board the morning train. It was 1894, and Ticie was eighteen years old.

  A few weeks later, as the bell announced the arrival of a customer, Fong See looked up to see not a Chinese or American whore, but a young woman with her hair pulled up into a knot on the top of her head. Her hair had frizzed in the damp air, and small tendrils hung down, framing her face in wisps of rosewood-colored strands. The girl paused momentarily, then asked, “Do you have any openings for employment?”

  “You want job?” Fong See asked.

  “Yes,” she said, stepping farther into the shop.

  “You no work here. This not a place for you.”

  “Well, I don’t know what this place is,” she said, “but I’ve been all over the city and nobody wants to hire me.” Sh
e seemed on the verge of tears.

  “This not a place for you.”

  “Why?”

  “This business for whores,” Fong See answered.

  “Oh,” the girl said, her voice quieting in disappointment.

  “Make underwear for prostitute.”

  The girl’s face brightened. “This isn’t a house of ill repute?” “Aiya! You stupid girl! This a factory. I own.” “I can sew.”

  “I no need that. I got plenty man help me. You go now. This no place for you.”

  The girl stared at him for a moment, then lowered her eyes. She sighed, shook her head, mumbled her thanks, and went back outside. From his place at the counter, Fong See watched the girl—her hair burning deep auburn in the sunlight—as she paused, looked first to her right, then to her left, shook her head again, then walked left down K Street. Fong See shrugged and went back to his work.

  Several times over the next few days, Fong See’s thoughts were drawn back to the girl. He had come in contact with more Caucasian women on the Gold Mountain than had most Chinese men, so he shouldn’t have given the girl a thought. But he did. He remembered her fresh skin, her pretty hands, her small waist, her slight overbite. He recalled her manner—straightforward, with an underlying somberness. A few times he thought he saw her pass by the plate-glass windows of his shop—her rich, thick hair always catching his eye. Keep your mind on business, he told himself.

  Then, one morning, while he was in the back of the shop, giving the day’s orders to the men, he heard the chime of the Chinese bells hanging from the front door, and went out to see her standing at the counter again.

  “Hello,” she said. “Do you remember me? I’m Letticie Pruett.” He nodded.

  “I could still use a job,” she said. He watched as she tried to smile.

  “No job here for girl like you. No job for girl.”

  Letticie was about to leave when the bell once again sounded. Madame Matilde, one of Fong See’s oldest customers, stepped inside. “I need some more of that underwear,” she said. “I don’t know what my girls do with it.”

  “Madame Matilde, good see you today. You want to buy?”

  “That’s what I said,” the glittering woman replied. “I’m needing some new merchandise. Now, chop-chop.”

  “One pair? Two pair?” Fong See asked, the words rolling together as he struggled with there sounds.

  “Jesus!” Madame Matilde spat out. “Now listen, Fong. I come in here every month. And every month I order the same thing. A dozen pairs in silk, a dozen pairs in muslin, and a couple of those camisoles. Now, like I said, chop-chop.”

  Fong See stared at Madame Matilde. She had spoken so fast that he hadn’t understood her words. As he opened a cabinet, he overheard Madame Matilde say to Letticie, “You have as much trouble with him as I do? I can’t understand a word he says.”

  “He asked how many pairs you need.”

  “Jesus, I already said that!” The older woman snorted in frustration. She tapped her fan impatiently. “Ah, hell. I just don’t have time for this today.” With that, Madame Matilde walked to the door, calling over her shoulder, “I’ll be back another day, Fong.”

  After Madame Matilde left, the girl watched as he put away the merchandise.

  “You could use someone like me, you know,” Letticie said. “No job!” Fong See said firmly.

  The girl smiled shyly at him again and left. Aiya! So much activity in the store, Fong See thought, and no money changing hands. This was not the way it was supposed to be.

  The next day, Fong See opened the shop and set the men to work. Business was slow, slow enough that he had time to stand at the window, gaze out into the street, and see the girl sitting on the wood-plank sidewalk across the street. She was staring at the Suie On Company. After lunch, he had the opportunity to pass by the window again, and he saw her still sitting there. All afternoon, Fong See was aware that the girl—what did she call herself? Letticie?—was watching him, watching who came in and who went out. He smiled to himself when someone left the shop with a large order, and cursed himself when someone walked out empty-handed. But what was he thinking? he asked himself. Keep your mind on business, he lectured himself time and time again. When the men went home and he locked up the shop, he made it a point not to look across the street in Letticie’s direction.

  The next morning she was waiting across the street when he arrived. He promised himself he would ignore her completely, which he did until Madame Matilde came into the shop. “Ready for a business transaction today?” she asked.

  Just as he was about to speak, he heard the bells on the door and looked up to see the girl with the rosewood-colored hair step into the shop.

  “Good morning, Madame Matilde,” Letticie said. “What can we do for you today?”

  “I’m thinking maybe two dozen,” the woman said, looking first to Fong, then back at the girl. “But only if I can get a good price. Bulk discount.”

  Letticie turned to the Chinese man, looked him square in the eye, considered, then stepped behind the counter. “Now let’s see what we have …”

  Fong See stood aside as the girl took over, pulling open drawers until she found what she wanted. He watched as her neck and cheeks turned red as she displayed the garments. But she was nothing if not determined. “I hope you’ll notice this fine needlework, ma’am,” she said. “Just look at these pleats. Why, we both know there aren’t many seamstresses in the world who can compete with this fine craftsmanship.”

  A half hour later, as the madam left with her brown-paper-wrapped parcel, the girl turned and gazed at him in her intent and somber way. “As I said before, I’ve been all over this city. I can’t get a job, because I don’t have experience. And I’m not about to join Madame Matilde’s establishment, although I’ve certainly received enough offers of that kind since I arrived. But you can see I’m not like that.”

  “You still want job?” Fong asked.

  “I’ve been watching your shop,” she continued. “I’ve watched you lose customers.”

  “I no lose customers. They just don’t want to buy.”

  “You’re wrong. People come to your shop because you have a …” She groped for the words. “You have a unique product. People come here because they want to buy. That’s why you need someone like me. I’m a woman. I can help you with those …” Again she stumbled around for the right words. She straightened her shoulders, and said, “I can help you with those special women. I speak good English, so I can help you with English-speaking customers. If you pay me a decent wage, you won’t be sorry.”

  Fong See stared at the girl. Didn’t she realize that he was Chinese?

  “You could get in trouble working here,” he said.

  For the first time, he heard her laugh. “Don’t you think I could get in more trouble working for Madame Matilde?”

  He wasn’t worried about that. He was worried about what would happen if someone decided to take offense that he had hired a white woman. This girl didn’t seem to care.

  The young woman stepped forward and extended her hand. “I told you before, my name is Letticie Pruett. You’ll be happy you hired me.”

  *

  In the following weeks and months, Fong See continued to be amazed by the auburn-haired apparition who appeared at his front door each morning. She was so different from the other Caucasian women that he had met in his years on the Gold Mountain. She didn’t wear feathers or satin or lace. She was practically and simply dressed—maybe a cotton ruffle here or there. She didn’t stink of perfume or men. Instead, she exuded an intoxicating odor of soap, powder, and lavender water. And while she was in no way like the prostitutes who came to him for their underwear, she was always kind to them, almost respectful.

  “That is not a job I would want to have,” she once said. “But I can understand how circumstances could lead a person into becoming a fancy lady.”

  See, it was things like that. “If you don’t mind,” she’d said tentatively
one day, “I think we should say we’re selling fancy underwear for fancy ladies. It sounds so much nicer. Our ladies will appreciate it too.”

  Half the time he didn’t know what she was talking about, but in this she’d been right. At first the girls had laughed. “Fancy underwear for fancy ladies. That’s us! You bet.” But they’d grown to like it. Where just a few months ago they’d have come in and said, “Give me some of that crotchless underwear,” now they asked for “fancy underwear.” And it was selling. Selling so well that Letticie had begun keeping the books. He smiled to himself as he recalled the look on her face when she’d realized that he didn’t keep real books, just the fake ones for the immigration inspectors.

  “You keep books to know how much you have—what’s selling, what’s not, your profits, your losses,” she’d explained.

  “I keep those in here,” he’d said, pointing to his temple.

  She’d shaken her head. “No, the business is too big now.”

  “You want, you do,” he’d answered, not knowing how to tell her that he could neither read nor write in Chinese, let alone English.

  A few months later she’d come to Fong See again. “I hope it doesn’t sound like I’m interfering, but I think you should ask the men to make up some regular underwear. Plenty of women would buy it if that certain part was just sewed shut.”