 | I The Bird of Love |  |
I
THEY were two young people with heads hot enough and hearts true enough to believe that the world was well lost for love, and they were Chinese.
They sat beneath the shade of a cluster of tall young pines forming a perfect bower of greenness and coolness on the slope of Strawberry hill. Their eyes were looking oceanwards, following a ship nearing the misty horizon. Very loving yet very serious were their faces and voices. That ship, sailing from west to east, carried from each a message to his and her kin—a message which humbly but firmly set forth that they were resolved to act upon their belief and to establish a home in the new country, where they would ever pray for blessings upon the heads of those who could not see as they could see nor hear as they could hear.
"My mother will weep when she reads," sighed the girl.
"Pau Tsu," the young man asked, "Do you repent?"
"No," she replied, "But—"
She drew from her sleeve a letter written on silk paper.
The young man ran his eye over the closely penciled characters.
"'Tis very much in its tenor like what my father wrote to me," he commented.
"Not that."
Pau Tsu indicated with the tip of her pink forefinger a paragraph which read:
"Are you not ashamed to confess that you love a youth who is not yet your husband? Such disgraceful boldness will surely bring upon your head the punishment you deserve. Before twelve moons go by, you will be an Autumn Fan."
The young man folded the missive and returned it to the girl whose face was averted from his.
"Our parents," said he, "knew not love in its springing and growing, its bud and blossom. Let us, therefore, respectfully read their angry letters, but heed them not. Shall I not love you dearer and more faithfully because you became mine at my own request and not at my father's? And Pau Tsu, be not ashamed."
The girl lifted radiant eyes.
"Listen," said she, "When you, during your vacation went on that long journey to New York, to beguile the time I wrote a play. My heroine is very sad, for the one she loves is far away and she is much tormented by enemies. They would make her ashamed of her love. But this is what she replies to one cruel taunt.
The Bird of Love within my heart sings sweetly
So sweetly, and so clear and jubilant,
That my little Home Bird, Sorrow,
Hides its head under its wing,
And appeareth as if dead.
For loving, all my noblest, tenderest feelings are awakened,
And I become too great to be ashamed.
"You do love me then, eh Pau Tsu?" queried the young man.
"If it is not love, what is it?" softly answered the girl.
Happily chatting they descended the green hill. Their holiday was over. A little later Liu Venti was on the ferry boat which leaves every half hour for the western shore, bound for the Berkeley Hills, opposite the Golden Gate, and Pau
| I The Bird of Love | |