V

“HOW MANY MOONS, LIU VENTI, since our little ones went from us?” asked Pau Tsu.

She was very pale, and there was a yearning expression in her eyes.

“Nearly five,” returned Liu Venti, himself stifling a sigh.

“Sometimes,” said Pau Tsu, “I feel I cannot any longer bear their absence.”

She drew from her bosom two little shoes, one red, one blue.

“Their first,” said she. “Oh, my sons, my little sons!”

A messenger boy approached, handed Liu Venti a message, and slipped away.

Liu Venti read:

May the bamboo ever wave. Son and daughter,

return to your parents and your children.

LIU JUSONG, LI WANG

“The answer to our prayer,” breathed Pau Tsu. “Oh Liu Venti, love is indeed stronger than hate!”

THE BANISHMENT OF MING AND MAI

I

MANY YEARS AGO IN THE beautiful land of China, there lived a rich and benevolent man named Chan Ah Sin. So kind of heart was he that he could not pass through a market street without buying up all the live fish, turtles, birds, and animals that he saw, for the purpose of giving them liberty and life. The animals and birds he would set free in a cool green forest called the Forest of the Freed, and the fish and turtles he would release in a moon-loved pool called the Pool of Happy Life. He also bought up and set free all animals that were caged for show, and even remembered the reptiles.

Some centuries after this good man had passed away, one of his descendants was accused of having offended against the laws of the land, and he and all of his kin were condemned to be punished therefor. Amongst his kin were two little seventh cousins named Chan Ming and Chan Mai, who had lived very happily all their lives with a kind uncle as guardian and a good old nurse. The punishment meted out to this little boy and girl was banishment to a wild and lonely forest, which forest could only be reached by travelling up a dark and mysterious river in a small boat. The journey was long and perilous, but on the evening of the third day a black shadow loomed before Ming and Mai. This black shadow was the forest, the trees of which grew so thickly together and so close to the river’s edge that their roots interlaced under the water.

The rough sailors who had taken the children from their home, beached the boat, and without setting foot to land themselves, lifted the children out, then quickly pushed away. Their faces were deathly pale, for they were mortally afraid of the forest, which was said to be inhabited by innumerable wild animals, winged and crawling things.

Ming’s lip trembled. He realized that he and his little sister were now entirely alone, on the edge of a fearsome forest on the shore of a mysterious river. It seemed to the little fellow, as he thought of his dear Canton, so full of bright and busy life, that he and Mai had come, not to another province, but to another world.