Pearl Buck - Gods Men

He leaped up the crooked stairs and took his suitcase and crammed his clothes into it. He had a little money left from the store the sailors had given him and he had kept it with him always in the small leather bag one of the sailors had made. This bag he had kept tied about his waist, night and day, lest the woman or the man discover it and take it from him. He paused for a moment to decide the matter of a blanket and then revolted at the thought of taking anything from this house. He would not even take bread with him. Alone he would be free to starve if he must.

Down the stairs he went again, carrying his suitcase. They were still in the kitchen as he had left them. None of them had moved. Their eyes met him as he came in, faintly aghast, and yet unspeaking.

“Good-by, all of you,” he said bravely. “Don’t forget I wanted you to come with me.”

He drew his folded cap out of his pocket and put it on his head.

“Good-by,” he said again.

They stared at him, still unanswering, and upon the strength of his continuing anger he strode out of the room and across the weedy yard to the gate which hung crooked upon its hinges. He leaped over it and marched down the road, his head high, to meet a world he did not know.

Despair drove him and lent him courage, and then the beauty of the land lifted his heart. Surely somewhere there were kind people, someone like Mr. Fong, who would recognize him and give him shelter for a while. He would work and repay all that he received and some day he would, after all, come back and see the wretched children he had left in that kitchen.

He had gone perhaps a mile when he heard the sound of feet padding in the dusty road. He stopped and turning his head he saw Bump running doggedly along, and he waited.

“What do you want, Bump?” he asked the sandy-faced, sandy-haired child who blinked at him, panting. The signs of hominy were still about his mouth.

“I’m comin’ with you,” he gasped.

Clem glared at him, for a moment resentful of the least of burdens. Then his conscience leaped into life again. Surely he could take this small creature with him, wherever he went, a younger brother.

“All right,” he said shortly. “Come along.”

IN MID-AUGUST THE NEWSPAPER headlines had announced the end of the siege in Peking, and a cablegram from Dr. Lane brought the news that he intended to stay. The Imperial Court had fled, and the Old Empress had wailed aloud her hardships. She had not even been given time to comb her hair, and her breakfast on the day of the flight had been only a hard-boiled egg.

“Serves her right,” Mrs. Lane said briskly. “Well, William, it looks as though I’d have to go back to your father. But you’ll be able to manage by yourself if I get your clothes ready before I go.”

William went to Cambridge for his final examinations in September. He had missed the preliminaries but Mrs. Lane had herself gone to the dean with a certificate signed by the headmaster of the Chefoo Boys’ School. She had so talked and persuaded and demanded that the dean was much impressed and granted her son a certain clemency, and William was admitted conditionally. He was confident that whatever promises his mother had made to the dean, he could in the course of four years fulfill. Indeed, he preferred not to know all that his mother had said and done for him. Thus he did not know, though he suspected, that the admirable arrangement he had made with Mr. Cameron to be Jeremy’s roommate, and when necessary his tutor, had taken shape first in the active brain of his mother.

Mrs. Lane, before she went back to China, had chosen a final Sunday afternoon to call upon Mr. and Mrs. Cameron. She had grown friendly if not intimate with them during the summer when William had gone almost every afternoon to play tennis at the house on top of the cliff. He had asked her to call upon Mrs. Cameron, stipulating that neither of his sisters nor his grandmother was to go with her.

“The Camerons are the kind of people I belong with,” he had explained. “I want them to know I have a mother I need not be ashamed of. Nobody else matters.”

Mrs. Lane was touched. “Thank you, dear.”

The formal call had gone off well, and Mrs. Cameron had explained that she must be forgiven if she could not return it, since in the summer she made no calls. Mrs. Lane and William were, however, invited to dinner within the month. After the evening pleasantly spent by Mrs. Lane talking about the Empress Dowager and the magnificence of Peking, it had occurred to the indomitable mother that a problem which had been worrying her much could now be solved. In spite of all her efforts, it was clear that William would be compelled to earn money somehow during college, and she could not imagine how this was to be done. She had inquired of the dean, and he had suggested waiting on table or washing dishes. This suggestion she had accepted with seeming gratitude but she knew it was impossible. William would not wait upon anyone nor would he wash dishes. It would be impossible to make him. She remembered the delightful evening in the great seaside house. It was a pity, she had thought, that the heir to all the wealth was only a pale sickly boy. William would so have enjoyed it, would have been so able to spend it well, looking handsome and princely all the while. She had thought deeply for some weeks, and had at last decided to call one last time upon the Camerons. She wrote a short note to Mrs. Cameron, was grateful for all the kindnesses of the summer, mentioned her impending return to China and how she feared to leave her boy so new and friendless here, and asked permission to come and say good-by. When Mrs. Cameron telephoned her to say they would be at home on a certain Sunday, thither she went, at five o’clock.

The butler ushered her into the drawing room, where Mrs. Cameron sat doing nothing while Mr. Cameron read the Transcript.

“Do sit down,” Mrs. Cameron said, and made a graceful motion with her ringed left hand.

“Thank you,” Mrs. Lane replied.

She had spent a good deal of thought upon her costume for this occasion. It should be plain, but not poor. It must convey good taste and a civilized mind.

Knowing the ready impatience of the rich, she had begun upon her theme as soon as Mr. Cameron put down his paper to greet her.

“Don’t let me interrupt your reading,” she said. “I have come for a very few minutes to say good-by — and for one more purpose. It is about William.”

“What’s the matter with William?” Mr. Cameron inquired.

“He has always done very well in school,” Mrs. Lane said. “We expect that. His father was graduated from Harvard summa cum laude. No, the concern is in my own heart. William is so young, so lonely. He has no one to take his parents’ place. His grandparents, my father and mother, are old and they can scarcely understand him. They have the responsibility of the girls, too. My husband’s parents are dead and the family scattered. If I could feel that William would be able to look to you and Mrs. Cameron for guidance — through Jeremy—”

“He can always come here,” Mrs. Cameron said in a mild voice. “I’m sure there is plenty of room.”

Mrs. Lane sighed. “Thank you, dear Mrs. Cameron. I dread the long vacations. His father says he must work and earn part of his way, but what does William know about such things?”

“It won’t hurt him to work,” Mr. Cameron said.

Mrs. Lane agreed quickly. “That is just what his father says, and I am sure you are both right. Please, Mr. Cameron, for the first summer at least, could you help to find something suitable for my boy, something that will not lead him into bad company? He doesn’t know his own American people yet.”