The Detroit times. [volume] (Detroit, Mich.) 1903-1920, 1911-01-03
ST0Rk FLIES ALL
WAY FROM CHINA
Wife of Attache of Chinese Legation
Had No Baby Things" and
Gray Nurse Simply Flew,
BY ROBERT WILSON.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 3.-You must
imagine a border of crooked bamboo
stalks around this story and matched
pagoda roofs tinted in under the type.
Tor II is the most foreign story YOU
ever heard. though il happened under
the OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES roof OF
the Chinese legation in Washington.
where lives necessary adjunct to the
story, the Hon. Henry kumphy Chang,
an absurdly short young man bearing
he absurdly long title of honorary
secretary 10 the envoy extraordinary
and minister pjlenipotentiary TO the
United States OF America
When Plain Mr.. Henry kumphy
Chang was designated an honorable.
and selected to be honorary secretary
to the envoy eXtraordnary-and
so-many-other-titles TO America, he
maze OF the sou OF heaven. his i'm
peria, majesty, ruler OF the celestial
empire. strange request. Ii was
nothing less chan that he be permit
ted 20 lake with him to America .he
slant-eyed girl who was his bride.
This was asking an extraordinary
thing, for Chinese girls and women
are not permitted TO cross the sacred
borders Of that pagan land. But ne
cause he was a most promising yolnS
mar, exceptional In virtues and men
tai attainments. his request was grant
ed. And that was how Madam Henry
Kumphy Chang happened TO come TO
Washington.
Charmed BY Strange Scenes.
The grand society ladies of Wash
irgton could scarcely think of the lit
lie madam as a wife at all. she
seemed to them child who ought to
be out I'm the blessed sunshine OF the
celestial empire. chasing the red and
purple butterflies and gold humming-
birds such as You see embroidered on
the fire screens in the Chinese baZar
Like child. she was charmed with
the strange new scenes or THIS
America, as though the whole country
were toy set up for her own spe-
ciai pleasure.
one day-oh, weeks and weeks ago.
IL was-the fairies whispered some
thing into her little brown ear and
she laughed a pure ripple of childish
delight At first she told no one OF
her new joy--it was too sacred. For
the good fairies had taken pity on
her lonesomcness here In far away
land and had whispered a promise TO
send her a little playmate that should
he her own forever and ever.
BY and by she told the Hon. Henry
Kumphy Chang. honorary secretary to
the very important And.so-forth, and
after that his inscrutble brown face
looked more mysterious than ever
And sometimes when she was out
riding in her automobile, with her
blue and crimson silk kimono hidden
beneath the sky blue cloak edged with
brown fur that wrapped her from
throat to toe, sometimes 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
thatch d pagodo roofs-of the
strength and courage OF the bird that
could wing across so many leagues
of sea waste and leagues of noun
fains and plain, the many leagues
from China 10 Washington, hearing its
precious burden.
The little Chinese lady had half eX-
pected to be out on the stone porch
between her Biedermeyer trees to
welcome the stork. TO see him appear
rs a speck on the western horizon. like
weary monoplane. But 1t didn't turn
out that way.
Nov brought a strange hush to
the legation, with everybody from the
silk.stockinged flunky at the door 70
the sculion boy in the kitchen going
atiptoe.
There was the beat of strong wings
and the stork had started on his long
flight back to the pagoda roofs. The
first one to speak was the doctor.
"Humph!" he growled where's the
child's clothes?'
There weren't any.
The Gray Nurse searched high and
low. No baby wardrobe. No baby
basket at all. II the little madam
heard sounds of the search. she must
have wondered, for il never occurred
TO her but that her little playmate
would come ready clothed, else how
could the brown butterball keep warm
through the stork's long, cold journey.
But presently the Hon Henry Kum-
ply Chang. honorary secretary to The
T.. r. and NJ. r.. raised his ivory face