Santa Fe new Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1898-1951, 1899-09-02
All LON.
Sc. Paul's.

All Lon was 16, and, considering that
she had grown up in China Town, re-
markably sweet, albeit with a tinge of
bitterness. She was also pretty, with
soft curves in her face and intelligence
in her large, oblique eyes. She wore a
neat frock of dark blue linen, made
with a long square Chinese jacket and
full trousers. A round club of wood fit
ting the nape Of her neck was her pill
low. She could only afford to have her
hair combed with the seven combs, and
worked into shining cues, stuck fast
with pomatums, then pinned fast upon
her head.
For All Lon was not the daughter of
a rich merchant, but of a poor seam
stress, who lived in a rickety old build
ing, more respectable than many in
China Town, but pa~tronized by rats if
not by opium fends. All Lon and her
mother, a withered old woman with a
determined temper, lived on the third
floor, and sewed week in and week out
for the Chinese who spent the
dollars of the rich merchants.
Until All Lon passed her fifteenth
birthday she was happy enough. From
her window she could look into the
grand restaurant opposite, whose walls
were of carved wood gilded, and whose
balconies were crowded with palms in
beautiful vases and hung with Chinese
lanterns. There was a banquet almost
every night, and the wealthy merchants
in their satin and crepe garments sat
about the little tables and dined off tiny
plates Of timer portions, while women
sat close by and sang in monotonous,
discordant voices. The opium smokers
lay on marble touches in the recesses of
the rooms and looked with filmy scorn
upon the beasts who cared for food.
Once a week All Lon went with her
mother to the josshouse and w%orshiped
the magnificent idols of ivory and gold,
and once she went to the theater and
listened for three hours to a play she
could not understand. But, although
there was nc scenery, she admired the
gorgeous gold embroidered robes of the
actors so much hat she forgot to be
bored, and finally went to sleep on her
mothers shoulder.
Beyond these brief experiences, and
what she saw from her eyrie, All Lon
knew nothing of the world. Her mother
had told her once that outside of China
town-a swarming precinct not a half
mile square-was a great dust colored
city called San Francisco, wherein only
an occasional washhouse bore the faint
est resemblance to any Of her native
place. But All Lon had never seen it,
although strange foreign looking people
came sometimes with a policeman to
poke their noses about China Town, TO
the phlegmatic contempt of the race
that bled and despised them.
"Mother," said All Lon one day,
'some girls have fathers. Have I not
oneT"
"Perhaps," said the mother, whose
wrinkled eye sockets suddenly contract
ed.
"Where, then, is he? p
"Under the pavement in a bunk,
smoking opium night and day-unless
he is dead"
All Lon stared at her mother with
expanded eyes. She knew that life was
not particularly interesting for little
girls whose mothers were poor, but it
was her first intimation that it might
be ugly. Usually, when her mother
spoke at all, it was to give her daugh-
ter brief orders. Upon rare occasions
Wo Ling talked of the Flowery Kingdom
Of her youth, rocking herself back and
forth and grooming the while.
"Will he never come back3"
"Ask no more" interrupted her
mother fercely. II have told you this
that you may know what will befall
you if you marry. He beat me and he
beat you, but you were too young when
he deserted us to remember. We were
not so poor then, and had saved money.
He took it all to buy him opium in a
hole underground, and left us to work
our fingers to the bone. Never shall you
marry SO long as l have strength in my
right arm to beat you"
"But are all men alike" asked All
Lon naively. She had seen slim and
prosperous looking young men sit down
to dinner opposite.
"All that you will ever meet. Talk
no more"
But a week later All Lon came home
one day after delivering a dozen little
jackets for a merchants child and
found We Ling pounding her knees
with her clinched hands. The woman's
patient face was contorted, her eyes
glittered with the sunken fires Of her
nature. 1t was the first time that All
Lon had seen her mother excited, and
she dropped the little bag Of silver to
the floor and stood wringing her hands.
what is it 2" she asked. What Ia
IT."
Wo Ling clasped her hands hard to-
gether and set her face.
"Your father" she said. And it was
some moments before she could speak
again.
"He is dead9" asked All Lon in a
whisper.
VIC Ling shook her head. Finally she