The Tacoma times. [volume] (Tacoma, Wash.) 1903-1949, 1911-01-13
THE LITTLE BROWN MADAM WHO HAD NO BABY
THINGS and The CRAY NURSE WHO SIMPL Y FLEW
Or the Wonderful Story of the
Chinese Stork Who lew All the
Way From the Celestial EN-
pire to Visit the Little Girl
Wife.
BY Robert Wilson.

| w AO11lNdlO4N, u. u, j an. Z
You must imagine a border OF
crooked bambo stalks around this
story and matched pagoda roofs
tinted in under the type, for it Is
the most foreign story you evel
heard, though it happened under
the thoroughly American slate
roof of the Chinese legation In
Washington, where lives a neces-
| sary adjunct to the story, the
Hon. Henry Kumphy Chang, an
absurdly short young man bear
ing the absurl long title of hon
orary secretary to the envoy ex-
traordinary and minister plenipo-
Tertiary to the United States OF
America.
When plain Mr.. Henry Kun
ply Chang was designated an
honorable, and selected to be
honorary secretary to the envoy
extraordinary and-ever-so-many
other titles to America, he made
of the son of heaven, his imperial
majesty, ruler of the celestial en-
pire, a strange request. 1t was
nothing less than that he be per-
mitted to take with him to Amer
lea the slant-eyed girl who was
his bride.
This was asking an extraordi-
nary thing, for Chinese girls and
women are not permitted to cross
the sacred borders of that pagan
land. But because he was most
promising young man, exceptional
In virtues and mental attain
ments, his request was granted.
And that was how Madam Henry
Kumphy Chang happened to
come to Washington.
Fairies Whisper.
The grand society ladies of
Washington could scarcely think
of the little madam as a wife at
all. She seemed to them a child
who ought to be out In the
blessed sunshine of the celestial
empire, chasing the red and pur-
Pile butterflies and gold humming-
birds such as you see embroider-
ed on the fire screens in the
Chinese bazaar. Like a child, she
was charmed with the strange
new scenes of this America. as
though the whole country were
toy set up for her own special
pleasure.
One day-oh, weeks and weeks
ago, it was-the fairies whispered
something into her little brown
ear and she laughed a pure rip
pie of childish delight. At first
she told no one of her new joy
1t was too sacred. For the good
fairies had taken pity on her
consequences here in a fair away
land and had whispered prom
Use to send her little playmate
that should be her own forever
and ever.
Stork Coming.
By and by she told the Hon.
Henry Kumphy Chang, honorary
secretary to the very important
and-so-forth, and after that his
inscriutible brown face looked
more mysterious than ever.
And sometimes whe nshe was
out riding in her automobile, with
her blue and crimson silk kiomono
hidden beneath the sky blue cloak
edged with brown fur that wrap
per her from throat to toe, some
times she would smile happily and
dreamily, and those who saw her
wondered. For then she would
be thinking of the same stork you
see painted on the fire screens
with crooked bamboo trees and
matched pagodo roofs-of the
strength and courage of the bird
that could wing across, so many
leagues of sea waste and leagues
of mountain and plain, the many
leagues from China to Washing
ton, bearing the precious burden.
The little Chinese lady had half
expected to be out on the stone
porch between her Biedermeyer
trees to welcome the stork, to see
hi mappear as a speck ON the
western horizon, like a weary
|monoplane. But it didn't turn
out that way.
November 2 brought strange
hush to the legation, with every
body from the silk-stockInged
flunky at the door to the sculIion
boy in the kitchen going tiptoe,
flor the little madam was very
sick. There was the grunty doc
tor who growled "Humph" when
anything displeased him, which 1t
usually did. And There was the
Gray Nurse and the Hon. Henry
Humphy Chang, whose round
brown face had gone a sudden
|iyor In hue. For no matter how
eagerly the storl Is expected, or
mo matter how glad people are
sfter his erranl Is done. the mo-.
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