She sat down beside him. Softly she put her arm around him and drew his head down to rest upon her shoulder and he did not wake.
In Peking Clem continued silent. Against his will the horror of old memories fell upon him. Here he had been an outcast child respected neither by Americans nor Chinese, because of his father’s faith and poverty. By accident the hotel where he and Henrietta lodged was upon the very street where he had fought the baker’s son and where William had descended from his mother’s private riksha. He pointed out the spot to Henrietta ten minutes after they had entered the room and for the first time he told her the story. Listening, she discerned by the intuition which worked only toward Clem, that the old pain still lingered.
“William was a hateful boy,” she declared with fierceness.
Clem shook his head at this. He was repelled by judgments. “I was a pitiful specimen, I guess.” He dismissed himself. “We’d better go and find out about your folks, hon.”
So they left the hotel and walked down the broad street, followed by clamoring riksha men who felt themselves defrauded of their right to earn a living when two foreigners walked.
“I’d forgotten how poor the people are. I guess I never knew before, being so poor myself.”
“Here is the back gate of the compound,” Henrietta said. “I used to creep out here to buy steamed meat rolls and sesame bread.”
They entered the small gate and walked to the front of the square brick mission house.
“I was here once,” Clem said. “It all looks smaller.”
The house was locked, but a gateman ran toward them.
“Where is Lao Li?” Henrietta asked.
The gateman stared at her. “He has gone back to his village. How did you know him?”
“I grew up here,” Henrietta said. “I am the Lane elder daughter. Where are my parents?”
The gateman grinned and bowed. “They have gone to their own country, Elder Sister. Your honored father grew thin and ill. He goes to find your elder brother, who is now a big rich man in America.”
“Can it be?” Henrietta asked of Clem.
“Could be, hon — want to go right home?”
She pondered and spoke after a moment. “No — we’re here. Haven’t I forsaken them to cleave to you, Clem? I really have. Besides, Mother would go straight to William, not to me.”
Clem received this without reply, and they went away again. The quiet compound, budding with spring, was like an island enclosed and forgotten in the midst of the city. The only sign of life was two women and a little boy at the far end of the lawn, digging clover and shepherd’s-purse to add to their meal that night.
“It all seems dead,” Henrietta said.
“It is dead, hon,” Clem replied. “In its way all that old life is dead, but the ones who live it don’t know it — not even your father, I guess. What say we find the Fongs?”
Mr. Fong had prospered during the years of civil war. Ignoring the political maneuvers of military men and passing by in silence the rantings of students upon the streets, he had begun to stock his book shop with other things people wanted to buy, needles and threads, brightly colored woolen yarns, clocks and dishes, machine-knitted vests and socks, leather shoes and winter gloves, pocketbooks and fountain pens and tennis shoes, pencils and rubber hot-water bottles. Most of his goods came from Japan and he was uneasy about this, for young students who were also zealous patriots often ransacked shops, heaped the goods in bonfires, and pasted labels on the shop windows announcing that so and so was a traitor and a Japan lover. Mr. Fong made two cautious trips a year to Japan to buy goods, and he had consulted with the Japanese businessmen with whom he did such profitable trade, and thereafter his goods were marked “Made in USA.” A small shipping town in Japan was named Usa for this convenience. Mr. Fong had then continued to prosper without sense of sin, for he considered all warfare nonsense and beneath the notice of sensible businessmen. He had peace of mind in other ways, for his family shared his health and prosperity and his eldest son had continued to improve the English which Clem had long ago begun to teach him. Yusan was now a tall youth, already married to a young woman his parents had chosen for him, and she had immediately become pregnant.
On a certain clear cool day in early spring Mr. Fong felt that life would be entirely good if politicians and soldiers and students were cast into the sea. His content was increased by the pleasant smell of hot sugar and lard that Mrs. Fong was mixing together in preparation for some cakes, helped by his eldest daughter, who was already betrothed to a young man whose father was a grain dealer. Mr. Fong’s two younger sons, Yuming and Yuwen, were playing with jackstones in the court, for the holiday of the Crack of Spring had begun.
Upon this pleasant household Clem and Henrietta arrived. The door was opened by Yuwen, who had been born after Clem went away. Nevertheless the American was a legend in the Fong family and Yuwen recognized him with alacrity and smiles. He left the door ajar and ran back to tell his father that Mr. Mei had come back. Mr. Fong dropped his pipe and shouted for Yusan, who was in his own part of the house and made haste to the gate.
With hands outstretched he greeted Clem. “You have come back — you have come back!” he spluttered. “Is this your lady? Come in — come in — so you have come back!”
“I have come back,” Clem said.
Thus Clem with Henrietta at his side entered again this fragment of the old world of his childhood and smelled again the familiar smells of a Chinese household, a mingling of sweetmeats and incense and candles of cowfat. There was even the old faint undertone of urine, which told him that Mr. Fong had not become more modern during the years and that he still stepped just outside his door when it was necessary. Smell of whitewash from the walls, smell of old wood from the rafters, and the damp smell of wet flagstones in the court were all the same. The pomegranate tree was bigger, and the goldfish in the square pool, roused by the sun, were huge and round.
Clem gazed down into the shallow pool. “Same fish?”
“The same,” Mr. Fong said. “Here everything is the same.”
A scream made them turn. Mrs. Fong rushed out of the open doors of the central living room.
“You are come — you are come!”
She took Clem’s hand in both of hers. “He is like my son,” she told Henrietta. Her round face was a net of smiling wrinkles.
“You must take her for your daughter-in-law.” Clem said. “Her father is Lane Teacher.”
“A good man, a good man!” Mr. Fong cried.
Yusan came out next and he and Clem shook hands in the foreign fashion, and then Yusan put his hand over Clem’s. “We have often asked the gods to bring you back to us.” To Henrietta he said with great courtesy, “My inner one asks you to go to her. She is very big just now with our first child, and does not like to come out before men she has not seen before.”
“Come with me,” Mrs. Fong said, and Henrietta stepped over the high wooden threshold.
“We will sit in the sun,” Mr. Fong said to Clem. “I do not need to be polite with you. Yuming, Yuwen — do not stand there staring. Go and fetch tea and food.”
The three men sat down upon porcelain stools set in the court and Mr. Fong surveyed with love this one returned. “You are too thin,” he told Clem. “You must eat more.”
“Elder Brother, I have a weak stomach,” Clem replied.
“Then you are too agitated about something,” Mr. Fong said. “Tell me what it is. You must not agitate yourself.”
Thus invited Clem began talking, as he always did sooner or later, about his hope of selling cheap food even here in China.
Mr. Fong and Yusan listened. Yusan never spoke before his father did, and Mr. Fong said, “What you have undertaken is far beyond the power of one man. It is no wonder that you have a weak stomach and that you are too thin. A wise man measures his single ability and does not go beyond it. What you are doing is more than a king can do, and certainly more than the Old Empress ever did. As for these new men we have now, they do not think of such a thing as feeding the people.”