The Blue Dragon: A Tale of Recent Adventure in China. Munroe Kirk
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Hatton station, looked after his luggage of queer camphor-wood boxes, and took him to the pleasant parsonage that was to be his home in the strange land. Although Jo talked only broken English, while Rob had very nearly forgotten the Chinese of his childhood, they managed to converse after a fashion, and took to each other from the very first. Rob, eighteen years old, brown, broad-shouldered, and sturdy, offered a striking contrast in appearance to the slender lad who walked, with noiseless, felt-shod feet, beside him, and Jo at once conceived a liking for the young American, who greeted him so cordially, took charge of him and his affairs with such an air of authority, and even could speak a few words of intelligible Chinese.
Rob also was pleased with the foreign lad, whose appearance recalled a happy childhood spent in company with many such blue-clad figures on the other side of the world. At the same time he was glad that Jo had not reached his destination a few hours earlier; for he realized that the strangeness of his companion's costume and his general make-up would have attracted much unpleasant attention from the village boys had they been revealed by daylight. He determined to urge upon his uncle the advisability of confining Jo to the house on the following day, or until he could be provided with an outfit of American clothing, and persuaded to wear his hair in accordance with American ideas.
A warm welcome and a good supper awaited the young traveller at the parsonage; and under their cheering influence his homesickness was, for the time being, forgotten. His boxes were promptly delivered at the house, and from them he took the most marvellous array of gifts for various members of the Hinckley family that ever had been seen in Hatton. To Mrs. Hinckley he presented several superb pieces of embroidered silks from Canton, a centre-piece for a table of pale-blue grass linen, drawn work from Swatow, a cloisonné teapot from Pekin, and half a dozen tiny teacups of exquisite Foo-Chow porcelain. For Mr. Hinckley he had wonderful ivory carvings in the shape of chessmen, and a wadded silk dressing-gown; while to Rob, in addition to several jars of Chinese confections, including sugared ginger-root, bamboo-tips, water-melon rind, edible sea-weeds, and palm-leaf buds, he gave a complete suit of Chinese clothing, such as is worn by the sons of wealthy mandarins, and selected from his own wardrobe. It was in striking contrast to the simple scholar's gown of light-blue cotton cloth that he had adopted as an inconspicuous travelling costume; for its dark-blue skirt was heavily embroidered with gold thread; it had a jacket of light-blue silk, with wide, flowing sleeves, a wine-colored, sleeveless over-jacket of the same rich material, black silk trousers, with plum-colored over-trousers, a light-blue silk cap, with a crystal button on top, silken socks, and gold-embroidered felt shoes.
Rob gasped with amazement when the various parts of this superb costume were unfolded before him, and was inclined to regard it with contemptuous amusement.
"All these silk petticoats and things for a boy!" he sniffed. "Catch me ever wearing such a lot of girl's stuff! And, I say, Uncle Will, that reminds me – don't you think we'd better get him into American clothes, and have his pig-tail cut off, before he is turned loose on the street. He'll jump into no end of trouble if he shows outside in anything like these, or even as he is now. It looks funny even to me, and I'll bet he couldn't walk down Main Street without being mobbed."
"I myself think that the sooner he conforms to the dress and customs of the country in which he is to reside for some time to come, the better it will be for him," replied Mr. Hinckley. "But, Rob, I don't like the way you seem inclined to treat his gift, and I am very glad he could not wholly understand what you just said about it. A gift of any nature, offered as a token of friendliness and good-will, should be accepted in the same spirit, even though it may not be just what you would have chosen. I do not know of anything that hurts one's feelings more keenly than to have a friendly overture contemptuously rejected."
"Of course, I wouldn't hurt his feelings for anything, Uncle Will," replied Rob, with a contrite flush mounting to his forehead. "I already like him too much for that, and I wouldn't have said what I did about his present if I had thought. I do thank you ever so much," he added, turning to Jo, "for all this silk stuff. I'm awfully glad to have it, and I'll put it away to wear at my first fancy-dress ball, if I ever go to one. Anyway, whenever I look at it, I'll be reminded that Chinese Jo is my friend, and that I am his."
Although Jo did not understand all the words thus spoken, he was so fully satisfied with their tone and the smile that accompanied them that, a little while later, when he went to bed, he was happy in the consciousness of having gained a friend of his own age in this strange land of strangers.
CHAPTER II
AMERICA'S UNFRIENDLY WELCOME
In spite of Jo's weariness of the night before, and the sound sleep that followed, he was out of bed by sunrise and gazing curiously from his chamber window. The air was sweet and cool, the arching elms stood motionless, as though not yet awake, and between them he caught a silvery gleam of the Connecticut. Beyond it rose soft, swelling hills, and he imagined their green slopes to be thickly strewn with graves, as always is the case in China; on them, too, he could see occasional groves of trees, each of which he supposed must shelter a white-walled temple or sacred shrine, this being the prime object of groves in his native land.
He wondered at not seeing any tall-sailed junks or guard-boats on the river, and at the utter absence of the useless but picturesque pagoda towers that add so much to the beauty of every Chinese landscape. Then, remembering that America is a very new country in comparison with his own, he concluded that its people had not yet found time to build pagodas, or, perhaps, were too poor. Of course, he could trace no resemblance between the broad, well-shaded avenue below him, with its rows of neat, white houses, and the narrow, crowded, shadeless streets to which he was accustomed. At the same time, the green country on which he gazed looked so very like a bit of Chinese river valley that he longed to explore it, with a hope of finding thatched farm-houses, curve-roofed temples, or other homelike features that should recall his own beloved valley of the Si-Kiang. He listened with pleasure to the singing of birds, which were infinitely more numerous than in China, and to the tinkle of cow-bells, a sound he never before had heard. He wished he might go down to the street and begin at once his study of the many strange things it was certain to contain, and he wondered how soon a servant would appear in his room with the bowl of tea that would be the signal for rising.
While he thus was cogitating, he heard a door below him open and close, and then he saw his newly made friend, Rob Hinckley, go whistling down the street, swinging in one hand a bright tin milk-can. If he only had known that Rob was up and going out, he might have gone, too. Perhaps even now he might overtake him and have a walk in his company. He was dressed, and the only thing about him not thoroughly presentable was his queue, which, not yet cared for that morning, looked rough and unkempt. At home some one always had combed and braided it for him, first his mother, and afterwards a servant. Since coming away, one of his Chinese companions and he had braided each other's queues every morning. Now Jo wondered who was to perform this service, but supposed that sooner or later some servant would come to his assistance. He wished the lazy fellow had appeared, and that this most important feature of his toilet had been attended to, for in China no gentleman will present himself on the street or in company unless his queue is carefully braided smooth and glossy. Exposed to public view in any other condition, it is a sign that its owner is in such deep affliction that he takes no interest even in the most important affairs of life.
Having been carefully instructed in this branch of Chinese etiquette, Jo was puzzled as to what he should do. He longed to join Rob on his walk, but hesitated to offend his friend by appearing before him with a disordered queue. He could not put it in order himself, and no one was at hand to assist him. Of course, he might conceal the fact that it was frowzy by coiling it about his head and hiding it beneath his cap; but even this plan had its drawback, for in the Flowery Kingdom it is an almost unpardonable offence for any man to appear in the presence of his superiors with queue coiled about his head or in any other way hidden. Still, the only superiors recognized at present by Jo were the senior Hinckleys, and by going down-stairs very quietly he might slip out of the house without attracting their notice, and so avoid giving offence.
Thus thinking, the lad hastily coiled his cherished but at that moment rather disreputable-looking queue closely about his head, pulled his cap over it, and, softly opening his room door, stole forth with the noiseless tread of a sneak-thief. He got safely as far as the front door, but