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Page 24 text:
“
(Prize Story) HUGE China Mail liner swung majestically around in San Francisco Bay, then proudly nosing its way among the smaller crafts, it steamed silently to the pier. In the steerage, with several companions, sat a small, lithe, clear olive-skinned, almond- eyed Chinese girl. Wall Lee, and her girl friends, did not know what to make of this new land which was so different from their own, and Wall Lee’s lips formed a silent prayer that she would find in the man waiting to marry her, a kind and loving Chinese merchant, as some of her sisters from the land of rice and poppies had done. Clutching their few possessions to them, the girls went on deck and entered the large, strange city of their new world, where every¬ one seemed always to hurry, hurry, hurry. A month later found Wall Lee seated dejectedly in a small room above one of the characteristically cluttered Chinese stores in the China-Town of San Francisco, She sat thinking of her friends at home, her dear mother, her gray haired father as she pictured him hobbling home at night from the day’s toil of mending fishnets. Then the opening door interrupted her thoughts, and her husband entered. She looked at him with wide eyes filled with wondering, questioning, and the longing for sympathy which is born of the understanding heart. “Is the day’s work done so soon?” she asked. “My work in the store grew too hard,” replied Lee Chong, “and I am seeking easier labor.” “I thought you were well satisfied where you were.” “So I was, but as they say ‘A person must not stay too long in one place.’ ” “Was it because of your work that you have not been so kind to me as you were the first few days?” “Perhaps it was, but I have come for something else. While I am not working we have no money with which to buy food, so I have found something for you to do until I am again at work,” —20—
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Page 25 text:
“
NTEPPPIH Into Wall Lee’s eyes flashed a frightened look, but after the fashion of her people she said nothing and without a word of protest she took her few belongings and followed Lee Chong. They made tlieii waj to Russian Hill and to an old brick house where she was shown a tiny basement room; it was to be hers. Then her duties in the household were assigned. Many months passed and Wah Lee saw Lee Chong only at the end of each week, when he would call for the money she had earned. Little by little Wah Lee grew accustomed to her surroundings and became devoted to the artist’s household in which she w r as em¬ ployed. She began to learn American ways and observed incidentally that American husbands were not like Lee Chong; that they did not force their wives to work while they did nothing; so when her wages were increased for faithful service she said nothing to Lee Chong, but hid the extra money in a little box she had brought from China. A hatred for Lee Chong formed in her heart and grew day by day. Two years passed and Wah Lee resolved to see what that great and awesome thing “The Law” could do to free her from her hus¬ band. One day she put on the clothes she had worn from China and went to see the man they called “The lawyer.” She learned from him that it was her right to do as the Americans did. The queer, little, fat lawyer explained in a kindly way that she should return again in one month for what he called “a hearing” and that he wonld send word immediately to Lee Chong to be pres¬ ent also. On her way home Wah Lee went through Chinatown, the part of Chinatown which, during the day, is reeking with a combined odor of fish, vegetables and ducks or other fowl being cooked in the oil prep¬ aration of the Chinese; the very busy part of that busy city by the Golden Gate where carts and trucks go rattling up and down over the cobblestoned hills and people of many races are hastening along the grey, cracked walks. Now, however, as Wah Lee lingered in the gathering dusk to look at tawdry shop windows, everything was much, much, quieter. She heard occasionally the soft pad of slippered feet slinking thru the shadows. Chinatown, after dark, is ever ominous, but fascinating —danger lurks in every shadow. Wah Lee shivered and hurried on. As the cold, gray mist from San Francisco Bay began to lift, and the east became lighter, the hollow rattle of early morning vehicles moving over the eternal cobblestones, broke the vast stillness of the sleeping city. In a dark, mist dampened alley near Sing Fat’s Emporium, lay a silent, huddled figure. Was she sleeping! She might have been had not the hilt of a short Chinese dagger shown itself from the folds of her mandarin coat. —21— HENRY SEISS, ’22.
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