III

THE CHILD OF THE WHITE woman, who had been given a babe into the arms of the wife of Lum Yook, was regarded as their own by the Chinese jeweller and his wife, and they bestowed upon him equal love and care with the little daughter who came two years after him. If Mrs. Lum Yook showed any favoritism whatever, it was to Pat. He was the first she had cradled to her bosom; the first to gladden her heart with baby smiles and wiles; the first to call her Ah Ma; the first to love her. On his eighth birthday, she said to her husband: “The son of the white woman is the son of the white woman, and there are many tongues wagging because he lives under our roof. My heart is as heavy as the blackest heavens.”

“Peace, my woman,” answered the easy-going man. “Why should we trouble before trouble comes?”

When trouble did come it was met calmly and bravely. To the comfortably off American and wife who were to have the boy and “raise him as an American boy should be raised,” they yielded him without protest. But deep in their hearts was the sense of injustice and outraged love. If it had not been for their pity for the unfortunate white girl, their care and affection for her helpless offspring, there would have been no white boy for others to “raise.”

And Pat and Pan? “I will not leave my Pan! I will not leave my Pan!” shouted Pat.

“But you must!” sadly urged Lum Yook. “You are a white boy and Pan is Chinese.”

“I am Chinese too! I am Chinese too!” cried Pat.

“He Chinese! He Chinese!” pleaded Pan. Her little nose was swollen with crying; her little eyes red-rimmed.

But Pat was driven away.

PAT, HIS SCHOOLBOOKS UNDER HIS arm, was walking down the hill, whistling cheerily. His roving glance down a side street was suddenly arrested.

“Gee!” he exclaimed. “If that isn’t Pan! Pan, oh, Pan!” he shouted.

Pan turned. There was a shrill cry of delight, and Pan was clinging to Pat, crying: “Nice Pat! Good Pat!”

Then she pushed him away from her and scanned him from head to foot.

“Nice coat! Nice boot! How many dollars?” she queried.

Pat laughed good-humoredly. “I don’t know,” he answered. “Mother bought them.”

“Mother!” echoed Pan. She puckered her brows for a moment.

“You are grown big, Pat,” was her next remark.

“And you have grown little, Pan,” retorted Pat. It was a year since they had seen one another and Pan was much smaller than any of his girl schoolfellows.

“Do you like to go to the big school?” asked Pan, noticing the books.

“I don’t like it very much. But, say, Pan, I learn lots of things that you don’t know anything about.”

Pan eyed him wistfully. finally she said: “O Pat! A-Toy, she die.”

“A-Toy! Who is A-Toy?”

“The meow, Pat; the big gray meow! Pat, you have forgot to remember.”