Adam laughed, and the boys could not recall ever having heard him laugh. “Is she a nice little girl?” he asked.
“Oh, yes,” said Aron. “She’s nice, all right. She’s good and nice.”
“Well, I’m glad of that if she’s going to be my daughter-in-law.”
Lee cleared the table and after a quick rattling in the kitchen he came back. “Ready to go to bed?” he asked the boys.
They glared in protest. Adam said, “Sit down and let them stay a while.”
“I’ve got the accounts together. We can go over them later,” said Lee.
“What accounts, Lee?”
“The house and ranch accounts. You said you wanted to know where you stood.”
“Not the accounts for over ten years, Lee!”
“You never wanted to be bothered before.”
“I guess that’s right. But sit a while. Aron wants to marry the little girl who was here today.”
“Are they engaged?” Lee asked.
“I don’t think she’s accepted him yet,” said Adam. “That may give us some time.”
Cal had quickly lost his awe of the changed feeling in the house and had been examining this anthill with calculating eyes, trying to determine just how to kick it over. He made his decision.
“She’s a real nice girl,” he said. “I like her. Know why? Well, she said to ask you where our mother’s grave is, so we can take some flowers.”
“Could we, Father?” Aron asked. “She said she would teach us how to make wreaths.”
Adam’s mind raced. He was not good at lying to begin with, and he hadn’t practiced. The solution frightened him, it came so quickly to his mind and so glibly to his tongue. Adam said, “I wish we could do that, boys. But I’ll have to tell you. Your mother’s grave is clear across the country where she came from.”
“Why?” Aron asked.
“Well, some people want to be buried in the place they came from.”
“How did she get there?” Cal asked. “We put her on a train and sent her home—didn’t we, Lee?”
Lee nodded. “It’s the same with us,” he said. “Nearly all Chinese get sent home to China after they die.”
“I know that,” said Aron. “You told us that before.”
“Did I?” Lee asked.
“Sure you did,” said Cal. He was vaguely disappointed.
Adam quickly changed the subject. “Mr. Bacon made a suggestion this afternoon,” he began. “I’d like you boys to think about it. He said it might be better for you if we moved to Salinas—better schools and lots of other children to play with.”
The thought stunned the twins. Cal asked, “How about here?”
“Well, we’d keep the ranch in case we want to come back.”
Aron said, “Abra lives in Salinas.” And that was enough for Aron. Already he had forgotten the sailing box. All he could think of was a small apron and a sunbonnet and soft little fingers.
Adam said, “Well, you think about it. Maybe you should go to bed now. Why didn’t you go to school today?”
“The teacher’s sick,” said Aron.
Lee verified it. “Miss Gulp has been sick for three days,” he said. “They don’t have to go back until Monday. Come on, boys.”
They followed him obediently from the room.
2
Adam sat smiling vaguely at the lamp and tapping his knee with a forefinger until Lee came back. Adam said, “Do they know anything?”
“I don’t know,” said Lee.
“Well, maybe it was just the little girl.”
Lee went to the kitchen and brought back a big cardboard box. “Here are the accounts. Every year has a rubber band around it. I’ve been over it. It’s complete.”
“You mean all accounts?”
Lee said, “You’ll find a book for each year and receipted bills for everything. You wanted to know how you stood. Here it is—all of it. Do you really think you’ll move?”
“Well, I’m thinking of it.”
“I wish there were some way you could tell the boys the truth.”
“That would rob them of the good thoughts about their mother, Lee.”
“Have you thought of the other danger?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, suppose they find out the truth. Plenty of people know.”
“Well, maybe when they’re older it will be easier for them.”
“I don’t believe that,” said Lee. “But that’s not the worst danger.”
“I guess I don’t follow you, Lee.”
“It’s the lie I’m thinking of. It might infect everything. If they ever found out you’d lied to them about this, the true things would suffer. They wouldn’t believe anything then.”
“Yes, I see. But what can I tell them? I couldn’t tell them the whole truth.”
“Maybe you can tell then a part truth, enough so that you won’t suffer if they find out.”
“I’ll have to think about that, Lee.”
“If you go to live in Salinas it will be more dangerous.”
“I’ll have to think about it.”
Lee went on insistently, “My father told me about my mother when I was very little, and he didn’t spare me. He told me a number of times as I was growing. Of course it wasn’t the same, but it was pretty dreadful. I’m glad he told me though. I wouldn’t like not to know.”
“Do you want to tell me?”
“No, I don’t want to. But it might persuade you to make some change for your own boys. Maybe if you just said she went away and you don’t know where.”
“But I do know.”
“Yes, there’s the trouble. It’s bound to be all truth or part lie. Well, I can’t force you.”
“I’ll think about it,” said Adam. “What’s the story about your mother?”
“You really want to hear?”
“Only if you want to tell me.”
“I’ll make it very short,” said Lee. “My first memory is of living in a little dark shack alone with my father in the middle of a potato field, and with it the memory of my father telling me the story of my mother. His language was Cantonese, but whenever he told the story he spoke in high and beautiful Mandarin. All right then. I’ll tell you—” And Lee looked back in time.
“I’ll have to tell you first that when you built the railroads in the West the terrible work of grading and laying ties and spiking the rails was done by many thousands of Chinese. They were cheap, they worked hard, and if they died no one had to worry. They were recruited largely from Canton, for the Cantonese are short and strong and durable, and also they are not quarrelsome. They were brought in by contract, and perhaps the history of my father was a fairly typical one.
“You must know that a Chinese must pay all of his debts on or before our New Year’s day. He starts every year clean. If he does not, he loses face; but not only that—his family loses face. There are no excuses.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” said Adam.
“Well, good or bad, that’s the way it was. My father had some bad luck. He could not pay a debt. The family met and discussed the situation. Ours is an honorable family. The bad luck was nobody’s fault, but the unpaid debt belonged to the whole family. They paid my father’s debt and then he had to repay them, and that was almost impossible.
“One thing the recruiting agents for the railroad companies did—they paid down a lump of money on the signing of the contract. In this way they caught a great many men who had fallen into debt. All of this was reasonable and honorable. There was only one black sorrow.
“My father was a young man recently married, and his tie to his wife was very strong and deep and warm, and hers to him must have been—overwhelming. Nevertheless, with good manners they said good-by in the presence of the heads of the family. I have often thought that perhaps formal good manners may be a cushion against heartbreak.
“The herds of men went like animals into the black hold of a ship, there to stay until they reached San Francisco six weeks later. And you can imagine what those holes were like. The merchandise had to be delivered in some kind of working condition so it was not mistreated. And my people have learned through the ages to live close together, to keep clean and fed under intolerable conditions.
“They were a week at sea before my father discovered my mother. She was dressed like a man and she had braided her hair in a man’s queue. By sitting very still and not talking, she had not been discovered, and of course there were no examinations or vaccinations then. She moved her mat close to my father. They could not talk except mouth to ear in the dark. My father was angry at her disobedience, but he was glad too.
“Well, there it was. They were condemned to hard labor for five years. It did not occur to them to run away once they were in America, for they were honorable people and they had signed the contract.”