The Killer

by Stewart Edward White

  CHAPTER XIV

  THE HEATHEN

  This must be mainly discursive and anecdotal, for no one really knowsmuch more than externals concerning the Chinese. Some men there are,generally reporters on the big dailies, who have been admitted to thetongs; who can take you into the exclusive Chinese clubs; who areeverywhere in Chinatown greeted cordially, treated gratis to strangefood and drink, and patted on the back with every appearance ofaffection. They can tell you of all sorts of queer, unknown customs andfacts, and can show you all sorts of strange and unusual things. Yet atthe last analysis these are also discursions and anecdotes. We gatherempirical knowledge: only rarely do we think we get a glimpse of how thedelicate machinery moves behind those twinkling eyes.

  I am led to these remarks by the contemplation of Chinese Charley at theranch. He has been with Mrs. Kitty twenty-five years; he wears Americanclothes; he speaks English with hardly a trace of either accent oridiom; he has long since dropped the deceiving Oriental stolidity andweeps out his violent Chinese rages unashamed. Yet even now Mrs. Kitty'ssumming up is that Charley is a "queer old thing."

  If you start out with a good Chinaman, you will always have goodChinamen; if you draw a poor one, you will probably be cursed with asuccession of mediocrities. They pass you along from one to another ofthe same "family"; and, short of the adoption of false whiskers and achange of name, you can find no expedient to break the charm. When oneleaves of his own accord, he sends you another boy to take his place.When he is discharged, he does identically that, although you may notknow it. Down through the list of Gins or Sings or Ungs you slidecomfortably or bump disagreeably according to your good fortune ordeserts.

  Another feature to which you must become accustomed is that of theUnexpected Departure. Everything is going smoothly, and you are engagedin congratulating yourself. To you appears Ah Sing.

  "I go San Flancisco two o'clock tlain," he remarks. And he does.

  In vain do you point to the inconvenience of guests, the injustice thusof leaving you in the lurch; in vain do you threaten detention of wagesdue unless he gives you what your servant experience has taught you is acustomary "week's warning." He repeats his remark: and goes. Attwo-fifteen another bland and smiling heathen appears at your door. Hemay or may not tell you that Ah Sing sent him. Dinner is ready on time.The household work goes on without a hitch or a tiniest jar.

  "Ah Sing say you pay me his money," announces this new heathen.

  If you are wise, you abandon your thoughts of fighting the outrage. Youpay over Ah Sing's arrears.

  "By the way," you inquire of your new retainer, "what's your name?"

  "My name Lum Sing," the newcomer replies.

  That is about the way such changes happen. If by chance you are in thegood graces of heathendom, you will be given an involved and fancyreason for the departure. These generally have to do with the mysteriousmovements of relatives.

  "My second-uncle, he come on ship to San Flancisco. I got to show himwhat to do," explains Ah Sing.

  If they like you very much, they tell you they will come back at the endof a month. They never do, and by the end of the month the new man hasso endeared himself to you that Ah Sing is only a pleasant memory.

  The reasons for these sudden departures are two-fold as near as I canmake out. Ah Sing may not entirely like the place; or he may havereceived orders from his tong to move on--probably the latter. If bothAh Sing and his tong approve of you and the situation, he will stay withyou for many years. Our present man once remained but two days at aplace. The situation is an easy one; Toy did his work well; therelations were absolutely friendly. After we had become intimate withToy, he confided to us his reasons:

  "I don' like stay at place where nobody laugh," said he.

  As servants the Chinese are inconceivably quick, deft, and clean. Onegood man will do the work of two white servants, and do it better. Toytakes care of us absolutely. He cooks, serves, does the housework, andwith it all manages to get off the latter part of the afternoon andnearly every evening. At first, with recollections of the rigidlydefined "days off" of the East, I was a little inclined to look intothis. I did look into it; but when I found all the work done, withoutskimping, I concluded that if the man were clever enough to save histime, he had certainly earned it for himself. Systematizing and no falsemoves proved to be his method.

  Since this is so, it follows, quite logically and justly, that theChinese servant resents the minute and detailed supervision somehousewives delight in. Show him what you want done; let him do it;criticize the result--but do not stand around and make suggestions andoffer amendments. Some housekeepers, trained to make of housekeeping anend rather than a means, can never keep Chinese. This does not mean thatyou must let them go at their own sweet will: only that you must try asfar as possible to do your criticizing and suggesting before or afterthe actual performance.

  I remember once Billy came home from some afternoon tea where she hadbeen talking to a number of "conscientious" housekeepers of the oldschool until she had been stricken with a guilty feeling that she hadbeen loafing on the job. To be sure the meals were good, and on time;the house was clean; the beds were made; and the comforts of life seemedto be always neatly on hand; but what of that? The fact remained thatBilly had time to go horseback riding, to go swimming, to see herfriends, and to shoot at a mark. Every other housekeeper was busy frommorning until night; and then complained that somehow or other she nevercould get finished up! It was evident that somehow Billy was not doingher full duty by the sphere to which woman was called, etc.

  So home she came, resolved to do better. Toy was placidly finishing upfor the afternoon. Billy followed him around for a while, being ahousekeeper. Toy watched her with round, astonished eyes. Finally heturned on her with vast indignation.

  "Look here, Mis' White," said he. "What a matter with you? You talk justlike one old woman!"

  Billy paused in her mad career and considered. That was just what shewas talking like. She laughed. Toy laughed. Billy went shooting.

  After your Chinaman becomes well acquainted with you, he develops humantraits that are astonishing only in contrast to his former mask ofabsolute stolidity. To the stranger the Oriental is as impassive andinscrutable as a stone Buddha, so that at last we come to read hisattitude into his inner life, and to conclude him without emotion. Thisis also largely true of the Indian. As a matter of fact, your heathen israther vividly alive inside. His enjoyment is keen, his curiositylively, his emotions near the surface. If you have or expect to havevisitors, you must tell Ah Sing all about them--their station in life,their importance, and the like. He will listen, keenly interested,gravely nodding his pig-tailed, shaven head. Then, if your visitors arefrom the East, you inform them of what every Californian knows--thateach and every member of a household must say "good morning"ceremoniously to Ah Sing. And Ah Sing will smile blandly and duck hispig-tailed, shaven head, and wish each member "good morning" backagain. It is sometimes very funny to hear the matin chorus of a dozenpeople crying out their volley of salute to ceremony; and to hear againthe Chinaman's conscientious reply to each in turn down the longtable--"_Good_ mo'ning, Mr. White; _good_ mo'ning, Mis' White; _good_mo'ning, Mr. Lewis----" and so on, until each has been remembered. Thereare some families that, either from ignorance or pride, omit this andkindred little human ceremonials. The omission is accepted; but thatfamily is never "my family" to the servant within its gates.

  For your Chinaman is absolutely faithful and loyal and trustworthy. Hecan be allowed to handle any amount of money for you. We ourselves areaway from home a great deal. When we get ready to go, we simply pack ourtrunks and depart. Toy then puts away the silver and valuables andplaces them in the bank vaults, closes the house, and puts all in order.A week or so before our return we write him. Thereupon he cleans thingsup, reclaims the valuables, rearranges everything. His wonderful Chinesememory enables him to replace every smallest item exactly as it was. IfI happen to have left seven cents and an empty .38 cartridge o
n thesouthwestern corner of the bureau, there they will be. It is difficultto believe that affairs have been at all disturbed. Yet probably, if ourstay away has been of any length, everything in the house has been movedor laid away.

  Furthermore, Toy reads and writes English, and enjoys greatly sending uswonderful and involved reports. One of them ended as follows: "Theweather is doing nicely, the place is safely well, and the dogs arehappy all the while." It brings to mind a peculiarly cheerful picture.

  One of the familiar and persistent beliefs as to Chinese traits is thatthey are a race of automatons. "Tell your Chinaman exactly what you wantdone, and how you want it done," say your advisors, "for you will neverbe able to change them once they get started." And then they will adducea great many amusing and true incidents to illustrate the point.

  The facts of the case are undoubted, but the conclusions as to theinvariability of the Chinese mind are, in my opinion, somewhatexaggerated.

  It must be remembered that almost all Chinese customs and manners ofthought are the direct inverse of our own. When announcing or receivinga piece of bad news, for example, it is with them considered polite tolaugh; while intense enjoyment is apt to be expressed by tears. Theantithesis can be extended almost indefinitely by the student ofOriental manners. Contemplate, now, the condition of the young Chinesebut recently arrived. He is engaged by some family to do its housework;and, as he is well paid and conscientious, he desires to do his best.But in this he is not permitted to follow his education. Each, move hemakes in initiative is stopped and corrected. To his mind there seems noearthly sense or logic in nine tenths of what we want; but he is willingto do his best.

  "Oh, well," says he to himself, "these people do things crazily; and nowell-regulated Chinese mind could possibly either anticipate how theydesire things done, or figure out why they want them that way. I giveit up! I'll just follow things out exactly as I am told"--and he doesso!

  This condition of affairs used to be more common than it is now. Underthe present exclusion law no fresh immigration is supposed to bepossible. Most of the Chinese servants are old timers, who have learnedwhite people's ways, and--what is more important--understand them. Theyare quite capable of initiative; and much more intelligent than theaverage white servant.

  But a green Chinaman is certainly funny. He does things forever-afterjust as you show him the first time; and a cataclysm of nature isrequired to shake his purpose. Back in the middle 'eighties my father,moving into a new house, dumped the ashes beside the kitchen stepspending the completion of a suitable ash bin. When the latter had beenbuilt, he had Gin Gwee move the ashes from the kitchen steps to the bin.This happened to be of a Friday. Ever after Gin Gwee deposited the ashesby the kitchen steps every day; and on Friday solemnly transferred themto the ash bin! Nor could anything persuade him to desist.

  Again he was given pail, soap, and brush, shown the front steps and walkleading to the gate, and set to work. Gin Gwee disappeared. When we wentto hunt him up, we found him half way down the block, still scrubbingaway. I was in favour of letting him alone to see how far he would go,but mother had other ideas as to his activities.

  These stories could be multiplied indefinitely; and are detailed by thedozen as proof of the "stupidity" of the Chinese. The Chinese areanything but stupid; and, as I have said before, when once they havegrasped the logic of the situation, can figure out a case with the bestof them.

  They are, however, great sticklers for formalism; and disapprove of anyshort cuts in ceremony. As soon leave with the silver as without waitingfor the finger bowls. A friend of mine, training a new man by example,as new men of this nationality are always trained, was showing him howto receive a caller. Therefore she rang her own doorbell, presented acard; in short, went through the whole performance. Tom understoodperfectly. That same afternoon Mrs. G----, a next-door neighbour andintimate friend, ran over for a chat. She rang the bell. Tom appeared.

  "Is Mrs. B---- at home?" inquired the friend.

  Tom planted himself square in the doorway. He surveyed her with a coldand glittering eye.

  "You got ticket?" he demanded. "You no got ticket, you no come in!"

  On another occasion two ladies came to call on Mrs. B---- but by mistakeblundered to the kitchen door. Mrs. B----'s house is a bungalow and on acorner. Tom appeared.

  "Is Mrs. B---- at home?" they asked.

  "This kitchen door; you go front door," requested Tom, politely.

  The callers walked around the house to the proper door, rang, andwaited. After a suitable interval Tom appeared again.

  "Is Mrs. B---- at home?" repeated the visitors.

  "No, Mrs. B---- she gone out," Tom informed them. The properceremonials had been fulfilled.

  To one who appreciates what he can do, and how well he does it; who canvalue absolute faithfulness and honesty; who confesses a sneakingfondness for the picturesque as nobly exemplified in a clean andstarched or brocaded heathen; who understands how to balance thedifficult poise, supervision, and interference, the Chinese servant isthe best on the continent. But to one who enjoys supervising every stepor who likes well-trained ceremony, "good form" in minutiae, and thedeference of our kind of good training the heathen is likely to provedisappointing. When you ring your friend's door-bell, you are quite aptto be greeted by a cheerful and smiling "hullo!" I think mostCalifornians rather like the entirely respectful but freshlyunconventional relationship that exists between the master and hisChinese servant. I do.[H]

  CHAPTER XV

  THE LAST HUNT

  Of all ranch visits the last day neared. Always we forgot it until thelatest possible moment; for we did not like to think of it. Then, whenthe realization could be no longer denied, we planned a grand day justto finish up on. The telephone's tiny, thin voice returned acceptancesfrom distant neighbours; so bright and early we waited at thecross-roads rendezvous.

  And from the four directions they came, jogging along in carts orspring-wagons, swaying swiftly in automobiles whose brass flashed backthe early sun. As each vehicle drew up, the greetings flew, chargedelectrically with the dry, chaffing humour of the out of doors. When wefinally climbed the fence into the old cornfield we were almost a dozen.There were the Captain, Uncle Jim, and myself from the ranch; and T andhis three sons and two guests from Stockdale ranch; the sporting parsonof the entire neighbourhood, and Dodge and his three beautiful dogs.

  Spread out in a rough line we tramped away through the dried andstraggling ranks of the Egyptian corn. Quail buzzed all around us likeangry hornets. We did not fire a shot. Each had his limit of twenty-fivestill before him, and each wanted to have all the fun he could out ofgetting them. Shooting quail in Egyptian corn is, comparativelyspeaking, not much fun. We joked each other, and whistled and sang, andtrudged manfully along, gun over shoulder. The pale sun wasstrengthening; the mountains were turning darker as they threw aside thefilmy rose of early day; in treetops a row of buzzards sat, their wingsoutspread like the heraldic devices of a foreign nation. Thousands ofdoves whistled away; thousands of smaller birds rustled and dartedbefore our advancing lines; tens of thousands of blackbirds sprinkledthe bare branches of single trees, uttering the many-throated multitudecall; underneath all this light and joyous life the business-like littlequail darted away in their bullet flight.

  Always they bore across our front to the left; for on that side,paralleling our course, ran a long ravine or "dry slough." It was aboutten feet deep on the average, probably thirty feet wide, and was denselygrown with a tangle of willows, berry vines, creepers, wild grape, andthe like. Into this the quail pitched.

  By the time we had covered the mile length of that cornfield we haddumped an unguessable number of quail into that slough.

  Then we walked back the entire distance--still with our guns over ourshoulders--but this time along the edge of the ravine. We shouted andthrew clods, and kicked on the trees, and rattled things, urging thehidden quail once more to flight. The thicket seemed alive with them. Wecaught glimpses as they ran befo
re us, pacing away at a great rate,their feathers sleek and trim; they buzzed away at bewildering pitchesand angles; they sprang into the tops of bushes, cocking their headplumes forward. Their various clicking undercalls, chatterings, andchirrings filled the thicket as full of sound as of motion. And in themiddle distance before and behind us they mocked us with their calls.

  "You _can't_ shoot! You _can't_ shoot!"

  Some of them flew ever ahead, some of them doubled-back and dropped intothe slough behind us; but a proportion broke through the thicket andsettled in the wide fields on the other side. After them we went, andfor the first time opened our guns and slipped the yellow shells intothe barrels.

  For this field on the other side was the wide, open plain; and it wasgrown over by tiny, half-knee high thickets of tumbleweed with here andthere a trifle of sagebrush. Between these miniature thickets woundnarrow strips of sandy soil, like streams and bays and estuaries inshape. We knew that the quail would lie well here, for they hate tocross bare openings.

  Therefore, we threw out our skirmish line, and the real advance in forcebegan.

  Every man retrieved his own birds, a matter of some difficulty in thetumbleweed. While one was searching, the rest would get ahead of him.The line became disorganized, broke into groups, finally disintegratedentirely. Each man hunted for himself, circling the tumbleweed patches,combing carefully their edges for the quail that sometimes burst intothe air fairly at his feet. When he had killed one, he walked directlyto the spot. On the way he would flush two or three more. They weretempting; but we were old hands at the sport, and we knew only too wellthat if we yielded so far as to shoot a second before we had picked upthe first, the probabilities were strong that the first would never befound. In this respect such shooting requires good judgment. It isgenerally useless to try to shoot a double, even though a dozen easyshots are in the air at once; and yet, occasionally, on a day whenKoos-ey-oonek is busy elsewhere, it may happen that the birds flushacross a wide, bare space. It is well to keep a weather eye open forsuch chances.

  With a green crowd and in different cover such shooting might have beendangerous; but with an abundance of birds, in this wide, open prairie,cool heads knew enough to keep wide apart and to look before they shot.The fun grew fast and furious; and the guns popped away likefirecrackers. In fact, the fun grew a little too fast and furious tosuit Dodge.

  Dodge had beautiful and well-trained dogs. Ordinarily any one of uswould have esteemed it a high privilege to shoot over them. In fact, Ihave often declared myself to the effect that of the three elements ofpleasure comprehended in field shooting that of working the dogs was thechief. Just as it is better to catch one yellowtail on a nine-ounce rodthan twenty on a hand line, so it is better to kill one quail over awell-trained dog than a half dozen "Walking 'em up." But this particularcase was different. We were out for a high old time; and part of a highold time was a wild and reckless disregard of inhibitive sportingconventions. The birds were here literally in thousands. Not a third hadleft the slough for this open country; we could not shoot at a tenth ofthose flushed, yet the guns were popping continuously. Everybody wasshooting and laughing and running about. The game was to pelt away,retrieve your bird as quickly as you could, and pelt away again. Thedogs, working up to their points carefully and stylishly, as good dogsshould, were being constantly left in the rear. They drew down to theirpoints--and behold nobody but their devoted master would pay anyattention to their bird! Everybody else was engaged busily in poppingaway at any one of the dozen-odd other birds to be had for theselection!

  Poor Dodge, being somewhat biased by the accident of ownership, lookedon us as a lot of barbarians--as, for the time being, we were; nice,happy barbarians having a good time. He worked his dogs conscientiously,and muttered in his beard. The climax came when, in the joyousexcitement of the occasion, someone threw out a chance remark on "those---- dogs" being in the way. Then Dodge withdrew with dignity. Having afellow-feeling as a dog-handler I went over to console him. He wasinconsolable; and so remained until after lunch.

  In this manner we made our way slowly down the length of the slough, andthen slowly back again. Of the birds originally flushed from theEgyptian corn into the thicket but a small proportion had left thatthicket for the open country of the tumbleweed and sage; and of thelatter we had been able to shoot at a very, very small percentage.Nevertheless, when we emptied our pockets, we found that each had madehis bag. We counted them out, throwing them into one pile.

  "Twenty-four," counted the Captain.

  "Twenty-four," Tom enumerated.

  "Twenty-four," Uncle Jim followed him.

  We each had twenty-four. And then it developed that every man had savedjust one bird of his limit until after lunch. No one wanted to be leftout of _all_ the shooting while the rest filled their bags; and no onehad believed that anybody but himself had come so close to the limit.

  So we laughed, and shouldered our guns, and trudged across country tothe clump of cottonwood where already the girls had spread lunch.

  That was a good lunch. We sat under shady trees, and the sunlit plainsstretched away and away to distant calm mountains. Near at hand thesparse gray sagebrush reared its bonneted heads; far away it blurredinto a monochrome where the plains lifted and flowed molten into thecanons and crevices of the foothills. Numberless crows, blackbirds, andwildfowl crossed and recrossed the very blue sky. A gray jackrabbit,thinking himself concealed by a very creditable imitation of a_sacatone_ hummock, sat motionless not seventy yards away.

  After lunch we moved out leisurely to get our one bird apiece. Some ofthe girls followed us. We were now epicures of shooting, and each letmany birds pass before deciding to fire. Some waited for cross shots,some for very easy shots, some for the most difficult shots possible.Each suited his fancy.

  "I'm all in," remarked each, as he pocketed his bird; and followed tosee the others finish.

  * * * * *

  Next day, our baggage piled in most anywhere, our farewells all said, webowled away toward town in the brand-new machine. Redmond sat in thefront seat with the chauffeur. It was his first experience in anautomobile, and he sat very rigidly upright, eyes front, his moustachesbristling.

  Now at a certain point on the road lived a large black dog--just plainranch dog--who was accustomed to come bounding out to the road to runalongside and bark for an appropriate interval. This was an unvaryingceremony. He was a large and prancing dog; and, I suppose from hisappearance, must have been named Carlo. In the course of our many visitsto the ranch we grew quite fond of the dog, and always looked as hardfor him to come out as he did for us to come along.

  This day also the dog came forth; but now he had no steady-trottingranch team to greet. The road was smooth and straight, and the car washitting thirty-five miles an hour. The dog bounded confidently down thefront walk, leaping playfully in the air, opened his mouth to bark--and,behold! the vehicle was not within range any more, but thirty yards awayand rapidly departing. So Carlo shut his mouth and got down to business.For three hundred yards he managed to keep pace alongside; but theeffort required all his forces; not once did he manage to gather windfor even a single bark.

  Redmond in the front seat sat straighter than ever. From his lordlyelevation he waved a lordly hand at the poor dog.

  "Useless! Useless!" said he, loftily.

  And looking back at the dog seated panting in a rapidly disappearingdistance, we saw that he also knew that the Old Order had changed.

  THE END

  FOOTNOTES:

  [Footnote A: Oiler = Greaser = Mexican.]

  [Footnote B: Saddle pockets that fit on the pommel.]

  [Footnote C: 3,350, to be exact. We later measured it.]

  [Footnote D: 3,350 feet--later measurement.]

  [Footnote E: 355 paces.]

  [Footnote F: Somewhere between 500 and 700 yards. I am very practised at pacing and guessing such distances.]

  [Footnote G: T
en years later sentence of death was passed and carried out after they had killed _one wheelbarrow_ load of broilers!]

  [Footnote H: This chapter was written in the--alas--vanished past!]