Wauwatosa news. [volume] (Wauwatosa, Wis.) 1900-1948, 1908-03-06
THE HEATHEN QUoNG.

/
the aid of a distant neighbor Long
years this man had lived alone in the
wilderness. rolling from station to sta
ton, aimless, purposeless, until one day
he looked into Jess soft gray eyes, noted
! the golden sheen in her hair, the extraor-
binary white skin that the sun had not
| touched Then he began to think seri-
ously OF life.
! And so he saved little and borrowed
little, and took up his selection, and on
it he built a house, lovingly, tenderly,
because she had promised to come and
look after it for him. Most of the furni-
| ture he made with his own hands, rough
stuff TO be sure, yet shaped and smoothed
| with loving fingers; but the cane rocking
chair he bought at a store in Wangarat-
| ia. That rocking chair had been the
dream of his life He fancied he could
see Jess sitting in it on winter nights,
the glow of the fire in her hair and on
! the red of her mouth. Then the wind
might roar as wildly as it pleased the
rain come down in torrents. He thought
the rain would sound pleasant with Jess
on one side of the fire and him on the
other,
And now, forgetting for the moment
| her detestation of thu breed, he had
| brought this Chinkie back to the home
stead, and she hated Chinkies. Well.
| perhaps it was foolish of him; but, as
he explained at some length, he owed
old Quong one, and he couldn't be under
an obligation to a joss protesting heath
| en-
At the same time Quong proved some
thing of a trial. His ways were not
| those of a white man, for, in spite of his
contact with western civilization, your
Chinese clings pertinaciously to the Gus
toms of his ancestors And many of
Quong's ways were still peculiarly Ash
attic. Yet he worked well and willingly,
albeit in his stolid Oriental fashion, and
Dick often declared that he had the
making of a first class hand At all
events, he never drank, and if at times he
INDUCED in a surreptitious pipe of opium
well. there were worse things than an
occasional pipe of opium, and Quong had
an intelligent decency which protested
most volubly against misuse OF the
drug. 70 be sure, he let off crackers
and burnt joss sticks on the Chinese New
Year; but as he even condescended to
wash himself on that auspicious occasion
the otiense was not without an extenu-
ating circumstance. Moreover. as an Off
set to his many heathenish iniquities. he
possessed two undisputed virtues, one of
which appealed to the boss, the other to
the misses. He could cook well, and
herein he found favor in Dicks eyes; he
was also devotedly attached to the boss,
and for that reason Jess forgave him
much.
In way, too, he was really growing
indispensable. He cooked and washed
and swept and scrubbed with an ardor
beyond all praise. When there was no
work within the house he chopped wood
and grew vegetables, and the bit of gar
den that the boss had despaired of this
/ ingenious Quong made to flourish like a
patch of his own Flowery Land And all
this he did with meekness, an unosten-
tation, which would have won admiration
from the least generous, And she was
not that. Only she didn't like Chinkies.
And then she grew weaker, and as the
boss had to make his periodic journeys
for the purpose of buying and selling he
always bestowed the following injunction
upon the attentive Celestial before set
ting out Look after the misses, Quong
If anything happens to her I'll belt the
life out of YOU" And Quong, grinning in
his silly Chinese manner, as invariably
answered, Me make 'em all Ii, boss" He
was not man of many words, this i'm.
pertmhable Quong, but the boss seemed
satisfied with his modest assurance.
And then the great event happened
Quong was sitting up that night because
the boss was restless. He watched him
pass in and out of the door dozen
times; look up at the SEARS, fill his pipe
light it, walk mp and down with hasty
strides, and generally behave in manner
incoRceivahle in one of his weight and
inches The doctor man from Wanga-
rata was inside, also the wife of dis
tant neighbor
Yes, OF course il was boy-it
couldn't well be anything else TO a man
like the boss-and from that moment
Quong's allegiance alternated between
the father and son. Jess was weak and
the farmers wife had her own affairs
to mind, but Quong stepped into the
breach and added nurse to that of his
other duties. If, hitherto, he had re.
vered the father, he now adored the son
Dick swore the fellow had been n woman
in another life, and truly no woman could
have played her part with greater care
and assiduity. At first, Jess protested
She would not have her precious baby
dependent on the whIms and fancies of a
yellow heather, She was sure Quong's
face would brighten the child into fits;
she feared it would have the effect os
permanently iniuring her boys character.
But someone had to attend to the young
ster and Dick was about as useful as an
elephant, He almost feared to touch the
soft wee mite. for fear OF INJECTING ire.
z mn Ia Il I.
scruples. He took TO it as naturally as a
woman does to her first born; washed
and dressed and nursed it with a femi-
nine ardor which wrung paens of praise
from the trembling fath2r. And when it
screamed at his ugly face, he merely ca
pered with delight and said:
Him belong giate man. boss. Ave got
number one lung. First-iate piece Kid.
Can do"
/ And SO twelve months passed on and