The Ragged Edge | Page 2

girl's smile.
The wedding procession passed on, and the cynical rabble poured in
behind. The pole-chair caravan resumed its journey.
The girl wished that she had come afoot, despite the knowledge that
she would have suffered many inconveniences, accidental and
intentional jostling, insolence and ribald jest. The Cantonese, excepting
in the shops where he expects profit, always resents the intrusion of the
fan-quei--foreign devil. The chair was torture. It hung from the centre
of a stout pole, each end of which rested upon the calloused shoulder of
a coolie; an ordinary Occidental chair with a foot-rest. The coolies
proceeded at a swinging, mincing trot, which gave to the suspended
seat a dancing action similar to that of a suddenly agitated
hanging-spring of a birdcage. It was impossible to meet the motion
bodily.
Her shoulders began to ache. Her head felt absurdly like one of those
noddling manikins in the Hong-Kong curio-shops. Jiggle-joggle,
jiggle-joggle...! For each pause she was grateful. Whenever Ah Cum
(whose normal stride was sufficient to keep him at the side of her chair)
pointed out something of interest, she had to strain the cords in her

neck to focus her glance upon the object. Supposing the wire should
break and her head tumble off her shoulders into the street? The
whimsey caused another smile to ripple across her lips.
This amazing world she had set forth to discover! Yesterday at this
time she had had no thought in her head about Canton. America, the
land of rosy apples and snowstorms, beckoned, and she wanted to fly
thitherward. Yet, here she was, in the ancient Chinese city, weaving in
and out of the narrow streets some scarcely wide enough for two men
to walk abreast, streets that boiled and eddied with yellow human
beings, who worshipped strange gods, ate strange foods, and diffused
strange suffocating smells. These were less like streets than labyrinths,
hewn through an eternal twilight. It was only when they came into a
square that daylight had a positive quality.
So many things she saw that her interest stumbled rather than leaped
from object to object. Rows of roasted duck, brilliantly varnished;
luscious vegetables, which she had been warned against; baskets of
melon seed and water-chestnuts; men working in teak and blackwood;
fan makers and jade cutters; eggs preserved in what appeared to her as
petrified muck; bird's nests and shark fins. She glimpsed Chinese
penury when she entered a square given over to the fishmongers. Carp,
tench, and roach were so divided that even the fins, heads and fleshless
spines were sold. There were doorways to peer into, dim cluttered holes
with shadowy forms moving about, potters and rug-weavers.
Through one doorway she saw a grave Chinaman standing on a
stage-like platform. He wore a long coat, beautifully flowered, and a
hat with a turned up brim. Balanced on his nose were enormous
tortoise-shell spectacles. A ragged gray moustache drooped from the
corners of his mouth and a ragged wisp of whisker hung from his chin.
She was informed by Ah Cum that the Chinaman was one of the literati
and that he was expounding the deathless philosophy of Confucius,
which, summed up, signified that the end of all philosophy is Nothing.
Through yet another doorway she observed an ancient silk brocade
loom. Ah Cum halted the caravan and indicated that they might step
within and watch. On a stool eight feet high sat a small boy in a faded

blue cotton, his face like that of young Buddha. He held in his hands
many threads. From time to time the man below would shout, and the
boy would let the threads go with the snap of a harpist, only to recover
them instantly. There was a strip of old rose brocade in the making that
set an ache in the girl's heart for the want of it.
The girl wondered what effect the information would have upon Ah
Cum if she told him that until a month ago she had never seen a city,
she had never seen a telephone, a railway train, an automobile, a lift, a
paved street. She was almost tempted to tell him, if only to see the
cracks of surprise and incredulity break the immobility of his yellow
countenance.
But no; she must step warily. Curiosity held her by one hand, urging
her to recklessness, and caution held her by the other. Her safety lay in
pretense--that what she saw was as a tale twice told.
A phase of mental activity that men called courage: to summon at will
this energy which barred the ingress of the long cold fingers of fear,
which cleared the throat of stuffiness and kept the glance level and ever
forward. She possessed it, astonishing fact! She had summoned this
energy so continuously during the