Hezekiah Butterworth - Little Sky High
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LITTLE SKY-HIGH
Or The Surprising Doings of Washee-Washee-Wang
by
HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH
Author of "In the Days of Jefferson," "The Bordentown Story-Tellers,"
"Little Arthur's History of Rome," "The Schoolhouse on the Columbia"
[Illustration]
* * * * *
The "Nine to Twelve" Series
===========================
LITTLE DICK'S SON.
Kate Gannett Wells.
MARCIA AND THE MAJOR.
J. L. Harbour.
THE CHILDREN OF THE VALLEY.
Harriet Prescott Spofford.
HOW DEXTER PAID HIS WAY.
Kate Upson Clark.
THE FLATIRON AND THE RED CLOAK.
Abby Morton Diaz.
IN THE POVERTY YEAR.
Marian Douglas.
LITTLE SKY-HIGH.
Hezekiah Butterworth.
THE LITTLE CAVE-DWELLERS.
Ella Farman Pratt.
===========================
Thomas D. Crowell & Co.
New York.
* * * * *
[Illustration: "IT OPENED A GREAT MOUTH, AND SMOKE SEEMED TO ISSUE FROM
IT." Page 41.]
New York:
Thomas Y. Crowell & Co.
Publishers
Copyright, 1901
By T. Y. Crowell & Co.
Typography by C. J. Peters & Son.
Boston, U. S. A.
NOTE.
The story of Sky-High is partly founded on a true incident of a young
Chinese nobleman's education, and is written to illustrate the happy
relations that might exist between the children of different countries,
if each child treated all other good children like "wangs."
28 Worcester Street, Boston.
_March 22, 1901_.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
I.
Below Stairs 7
II.
Before the Mandarin 13
III.
Lucy's Cup of Tea 20
IV.
How Sky-High Called the Governor 26
V.
Sky-High's Wonder-Tale 31
VI.
The Mandarin Plate 35
VII.
Sky-High's Kite 39
VIII.
A Wan 44
IX.
Lucy's Jataka Story 48
X.
Sky-High's Easter Sunday 51
XI.
Sky-High's Fireworks 55
XII.
A Chinese Santa Claus 62
XIII.
A Legend of Tea 68
XIV.
Mrs. Van Buren's Christmas Tale 70
XV.
In the House-Boy's Care 76
XVI.
In the Little Wang's Land 82
LITTLE SKY-HIGH.
I.
BELOW STAIRS.
The children came home from school--Charles and Lucy.
"I have a surprise for you in the kitchen," said their mother, Mrs.
Van Buren. "No, take off your things first, then you may go down
and see. Now don't laugh--a laugh that hurts anyone's feelings is so
unkind--tip-toe too! No, Charlie, one at a time; let Lucy go first."
Lucy tip-toed with eyes full of wonder to the dark banister-stairs that
led down to the quarters below. Her light feet were as still as a little
mouse's in a cheese closet. Presently she came back with dancing eyes.
"Oh, mother! where did you get him? His eyes are like two almonds, and
his braided hair dangles away down almost to the floor, and there are
black silk tassels on the end of it, and kitty is playing with them;
and when Norah caught my eye she bent over double to laugh, but he
kept right on shelling peas. Charlie, come and see; let me go with
Charlie, mother?"
Charlie followed Lucy, tip-toeing to the foot of the banister, where
a platform-stair commanded a view of the kitchen.
It was a very nice kitchen, with gas, hot water and cold, ranges and
gas-stoves, and two great cupboards with glass doors through which
all sorts of beautiful serving-dishes shone. Green ivies filled the
window-cases, and geraniums lined the window-sills. A fine old parrot
from the Andes inhabited a large cage with an open door, hanging over
the main window, where the wire netting let in the air from the apple
boughs.
On reaching the platform-stair, Charlie was as astonished as Lucy could
wish.
There sat a little Chinese boy, as it seemed, although at second glance
he looked rather old for a boy. He wore blue clothes and was shelling
peas. His glossy black "pigtail" reached down to the floor, and the
kitten was trying to raise the end of it in her pretty white paws.
As Lucy had said, heavy black silk cords were braided in with the hair,
with handsome tassels.
The parrot had come out of her cage, and was eying the boy and the
kitten, plainly hoping for mischief. Suddenly she caught Charlie's eye,
and with a flap of her wings she cried out to him.
"He's a quare one! Now, isn't he?"
The bird had heard Irish Nora say this a number of times during the day
and had learned the words. Charlie could not help laughing out in
response. With this encouragement Polly came down towards the door of
the cage, and thrust her green and yellow head out into the room. "Now,
isn't he, sure?" cried she, in Nora's own voice.
Nora was sole ruler of this cheerful realm below stairs; the only other
inhabitants of the kitchen were the parrot and the kitten, and now this
Chinese boy. Nora's special work-room was a great pantry with a latticed
window. Near-by a wide door led out into a little garden of apple, pear,
and cherry trees; the garden had a grape-arbor too, which ran from the
door to a roomy cabin. Here was every convenience for washing and
ironing.
Nora was a portly woman, with a round face, large forehead, and a little
nose which seemed to be always laughing. She was a merry soul; and she
used to tell "the children," as Charles and Lucy were called,
"Liliputian stories," tales of the Fairy Schoolmaster of Irish lore.
The Chinese boy did not look up to Polly as she gazed and exclaimed at
him, but shelled his peas.
Presently, however, the pretty kitten whirled the industrious boy's
pigtail around in a circle until it pulled. Then he cast his almond eyes
at her, and addressed her in a tone like the clatter of rolling rocks.
"Ok-oka-ok-a-a!"
The kitten flew to the other side of the room, and Nora appeared from
the pantry. When she saw the two children on the stairs, she put her
hands on her sides and laughed with her nose. "We've a quare one here,
now, haven't we?" said she.
Polly stretched her lovely head out into the room from the cage, and
flapped her wings, and swung to and fro, and the kitten returned,
whereupon the boy drew up his pigtail and tied it around his neck like
a necktie.
"See, children," said Nora, pointing, "what your mother has brought
home! She says we must all be good to him, and it's never hard I would
be to any living crater. He came down from the sun, he says. What do you
think his name is? And you could never guess! It's Sky-High, which is to
say, come-down-from-the-sun. And a man in a coach it was that brought
him. Sure, I never came here in a coach, but on my two square feet; he
came from the consul's office--Misther Bradley's--and a ship it was that
brought him there. Ah, but he's a quare kitchen-boy!
"But your mother, all with a heart as warm as pudding, she's going to
educate him; and if he does well, she's going to promote him up aloft,
to take care of all the foine rooms, and furniture and things, and to
wait upon the table, and tend the door for aught I know. She made me
promise I would be remarkable good to him--but it don't do no harm for
me to say that he's a quare one! _he_ can't understand it--_he_ speaks
the language of the sun, all like the cracking of nuts, or the rattling
of a loose thunder-storm over the shingles."
"Sky-High?" ventured little Lucy mischievously.
The Chinese boy looked up, with a quick blink of his eyes.
"At your service, madam," said he in very good English.
Nora lifted her great arms.
"And he does speak English! Who knows but he understood all I said, and
what the parrot said too. Poll, you go into your cage! 'At your service,
madam!' And did you hear it, Lucy? No errand-boy ever spoke in the
loikes o' that before! I'd think h'd been brought up among the quality.
It maybe he's a Fairy Shoemaker, spaking the queen's court-language, and
no errand-boy at all!"
A bell sounded up-stairs, and the two children ran back.
"Oh, mother, never was there a boy like that!" said Charlie.
"Well," said Mrs. Van Buren, "you shall tell your father how you found
little Sky-High--it will be a pretty after-supper story. I want you to
think kindly of him, for if he does well he is to stay with us a year."
The children found their father in the dining-room; and as they kissed
him they both cried, "Oh, oh!"
"What is it now?" asked Mr. Van Buren. "What has happened to-day?"
"Wait until after supper," said Mrs. Van Buren; "then they shall tell
you of a curious event in the kitchen. There really is something to
tell," she added, smiling.
II.
BEFORE THE MANDARIN!
As Mr. Van Buren was a prudent, wise, and good-natured man, he left all
the affairs of housekeeping to his wife. He had so seldom been "below
stairs" that he never had even made the acquaintance of Polly, the
lively bird of the kitchen. The kitten sometimes came up to visit him;
on which occasions she simply purred, and sank down to rest on his knee.
After supper was over, Mr. Van Buren caught Lucy up.
"And now what amusing thing is it that my little girl has to tell
me--something new that Nora has told you of the Fairy Shoemaker?"
"There's really a wonderful thing down in the kitchen, father," said
Lucy; "wonderfuller than anything in the Fairy Shoemaker tales."
"And where did it come from?"
"Down from the sun, father, and Nora says it came in a coach!"
Mr. Van Buren turned to his wife.
"It came from the Consul's," she said--"from Consul Bradley's."
"Has Consul Bradley been here?" he asked, thinking some Chinese curio
had been shipped over. Consul Bradley was a Chinese consular agent, a
man of considerable wealth, with a large knowledge of the world, and
a friend of the Van Buren family.
"No," said Mrs. Van Buren, "but his coach-man has brought me a
kitchen-boy."
"Well, that _is_ rather wonderful! Is that what you have
down-stairs, Lucy?"
"That doesn't half tell it, father," cried Charlie. "He's a little
Chineseman!"
"I was in the Consul's office this morning," went on Mrs. Van Buren,
smiling at her husband's astonishment; "and the Consul said to me,
'Wouldn't you like to have a neat, trim, tidy, honest, faithful,
tender-hearted, polite boy to learn general work?' I said to the Consul,
'Yes, that is the person that I have been needing for years.' He said,
'Would you have any prejudice against a little Chinese servant, if he
were trusty, after the general principles I have described?' I said to
him, 'None whatever.' He continued: 'A Chinese lad from Manchuria has
been sent to me by a friend in the hong, and I am asked to find him a
place to learn American home-making ideas in one of the best families.
Your family is that place--shall I send him?' So he came in the Consul's
coach, as Lucy said, and with him an immense trunk covered with Chinese
brush-marks. He seems to be a little gentleman; and when I asked him his
name he said, 'The Consul told me to tell you to call me Sky-High.'
He doesn't speak except to make replies, but these are in very good
English."
"May I give my opinion?" asked little Lucy.
"Well, Lucy," said her mother, smiling, "what is your opinion?"
"He looks like an emperor's son, or a mandarin," said Lucy.
"And what put such a thought into your head?" asked her mother.
"The pictures on my Chinese fans," said Lucy promptly.
"Well," said Mrs. Van Buren, "if he does well, you shall treat him
exactly as though he were the son of an emperor or a wang--he says that
kings are called wangs in his land."
"Then he would be a little wang," said Lucy. "I will make believe he is
a little wang while he stays."
So Sky-High became a little wang to Lucy; and a wonderful little wang he
promised to be.
At Mr. Van Buren's wish, little Sky-High was sent for. The Chinese boy
asked Charlie, who went down for him, that he might have time to change
his dress so that he might suitably appear before "the mandarin in the
parlor." (A "mandarin" in China is a kind of mayor or magistrate of rank
more or less exalted.)
Charlie came back with the kitchen-boy's message. "He says that he wants
a little time to change his clothes so that he may suitably appear
before the mandarin in the parlor."
"The mandarin in the parlor!" exclaimed Mr. Van Buren, in a burst of
laughter. "My father used to speak of mandarins--he traded ginseng for
silks and teas at Canton in the days of the hongs--the open market or
trading-places. That was a generation ago. There are no longer any
store-houses for ginseng on the wharves of Boston. Yet my father made
all his money in this way. 'The mandarin in the parlor.' Sky-High has
a proper respect for superiors; I like the boy for that."
By and by the sound of soft feet were heard at the folding-doors.
"Come in, Sky-High," said Mrs. Van Buren.
The little kitchen-boy appeared, and all eyes lighted up in wonder.
He wore a silk tunic fringed with what looked like gold. His stockings
were white, and his shoes were spangled with silver. The broad sleeves
of his tunic were richly embroidered--he seemed to wing himself in. A
beautiful fan was in his hand, which he very slowly waved to and fro, as
if following some custom. Mrs. Van Buren wondered if servants in China
came fanning themselves when summoned by their master. Sky-High bowed
and bowed and bowed again, then moved with a gliding motion in front of
Mr. Van Buren's chair, still bowing and bowing, and there he remained
in an attentive bent attitude. The kitten leaped up from Mr. Van Buren's
knee, then jumped down, plainly with an intention to play with the
tempting pigtail--but Lucy sprang and captured the snowy little creature.
"So you are Sky-High?" said Mr. Van Buren. "Well, a right neat and
smart-looking boy you are!"
"The Mandarin of Milton!" said the glittering little fellow, bending.
"My ancestors have heard of the mandarins of Boston and Milton, even in
the days of Hoqua."
"Hoqua?" Mr. Van Buren looked at the boy with interest, "You know of
Hoqua?"
"Who is Hoqua?" asked Mrs. Van Buren.
Mr. Van Buren turned to her, "I will tell you later."
"Hoqua, madam," said Sky-High, bowing to his mistress, "was the great
merchant mandarin of Canton in the time of the opening of that port to
all countries."
How did a Chinese servant know anything of Hoqua? This was the question
that puzzled Mr. Van Buren. "Sky-High, how many people have you in your
country?" he asked.
"It is said four hundred million."
"We have only seventy millions here, Sky-High."
"I have been told," said Sky-High.
"And who is ruler over all your people?" asked Mr. Van Buren.
"The Celestial Emperor, the Son of Heaven, the Brother of the Sun and
Moon, the Dweller in Rooms of Gold, the Light of Life, the Father of the
Nations."
"You fill me with wonder, Sky-High. We have a plain President. Do your
people die to make room for more millions?"
"My people value not to die, O Mandarin!" said the boy.
"Such throngs of people--they all have souls, think you?"
A dark flush came upon little Sky-High's forehead. He opened his narrow
black eyes upon his master. "Souls? They have souls, O Mandarin! Souls
are all my people have for long."
"Where go their souls when your people die?"
"To their ancestors! With them they live among the lotus blooms."
"We will excuse you now," said Mr. Van
Buren to Sky-High. "You have answered
intelligently, according to your knowledge."
The kitchen-boy bowed himself out without turning his back towards any
one, describing many glittering angles, and waving his fan. He looked
like something vanishing, a bit of fireworks going out.
As he reached the stair, the little white cat sprang from Lucy's arms,
and skipped swiftly after the curious inmate of the kitchen. The long,
swinging braid was a temptation. The last glimpse Charles and Lucy had
was of an embroidered sleeve as Sky-High reached backward and caught the
kitten to his shoulder, and bound her fast with his queue.
Charlie clapped his hands. He thought there would be fun in the house.
He knew he should like Sky-High. As they went up-stairs he said to Lucy,
"The little Chinaman was a heathen, and father was a missionary."
Mr. Van Buren heard him, and called him back. "The little Chinaman was a
new book," said he, "and your father was reading. See that you treat the
boy well."
III.
LUCY'S CUP OF TEA.
Mr. Van Buren's home was on Milton Hill. It overlooked Boston and the
harbor. The upper windows commanded a glorious view in the morning.
Before it glittered the sea with its white sails, and behind it rose the
Blue Hills with their green orchards and woods. The house was colonial,
with gables and cupola, and was surrounded by hour-glass elms, arbors,
and evergreen trees. It had been built by Mr. Van Buren's father in the
days of the China trade and of the primitive mandarin merchant, Hoqua.
Mr. Van Buren, a tea-merchant of Boston, received his goods through
merchant vessels, and not through his own ships as his father had done.
The next morning Mrs. Van Buren went down early into her kitchen to
assign Sky-High his work.
Nora, in a loud whisper that the birds in the apple-boughs might have
heard, informed Mrs. Van Buren that the new Chinese servant was "no good
as a sweeper," and asked what he did with his pigtail when he slept. "It
must take him a good part of to-morrer to comb his hair, it is that long,"
she said. "And wouldn't you better use him up-stairs for an errand-boy
altogether now? Sure, you wouldn't be after teaching him any cooking at
all?" Nora was an old servant and had many privileges of speech.
Mrs. Van Buren smiled, and arranged that little Sky-High should wash and
iron clothes in the cabin under the blooming trees, at the end of the
arbor.
"And if you learn well," said she, "I may let you tend the door, and
wait upon the table, and keep the rooms in order."
"And then you will be up-stairs," said little Lucy, "where it is very
pleasant."
"And now, Sky-High, tell me how it is that you can speak English so
well," said Mrs. Van Buren, as they stood in the cabin, where the
prospect of solitude seemed to please the boy. A gleam of something like
mischief appeared on little Sky-High's face.
"And, Madame de Mandarin," said he, "I speak French too. _Parlez-vous
Francais_, Mademoiselle Lucy?" he added rapidly, turning to the
little American girl. "_Pardonne_, Madame la Mandarin!"
"Sky-High will not say 'Mandarin' any more," said Mrs. Van Buren. "There
are no mandarins in this country, and when Sky-High is called into the
rooms above he will wear his plain clothes, not spangled clothes. Now,
who taught you English?"
"My master, madam."
"Say mistress, Sky-High."
"My master, mistress."
"Where did you live in Manchuria?"
"In the house of a mandarin."
"And who was your master?"
"The mandarin, mistress."
"Do mandarins in China teach their servants to speak English?"
"Some mandarins do, your grace."
"Do not say 'your grace,' Sky-High, but simply mistress. Ladies have no
titles in America. Where is the city in which you lived?"
"In Manchuria, on the coast, on the Crystal Sea."
The kitten came running into the kitchen, and at once leaped on to the
end of Sky-High's pigtail.
The boy gave his pigtail a sudden whisk.
"Pie-cat?" asked he.
"No, no!" said Mrs. Van Buren in horror. "We have no pie-cats in this
country. Was there an English teacher in your house?"
Little Sky-High was winding his pigtail about his neck for safety. He
saw Lucy giggling, and a laugh came into his own eyes.
"_Pardonne_, mistress. We had an English trader at the hong--at the
trade-house."
"Do they send servants to English teachers in China?"
"When they are to grow up and deal with English business, mistress."
"Did you meet English people at the hong?"
"Yes, mistress."
"Who were they?"
"I cannot name them. There were my lords and the admiral; and the
American Consul he came, and the German Consul he came, and the American
travelers they came, and Russian officers they came."
"How old are you, Sky-High?"
"There have passed over me fifteen New-Year days, mistress."
"Well, Sky-High," said his mistress, "I am going to give you this cabin
under the trees, where you may do your washings and all your ironings.
No one else shall come here to work. I have decided to have you begin
to-morrow to bring up the breakfast."
The next morning Sky-High performed his first service at the
breakfast-table. He brought up the coffee while Mr. Van Buren was saying
grace. He paused before the table.
"Sleepy, sleepy!" he exclaimed softly, "all sleepy!"
Mrs. Van Buren put out her hand as a signal for him to wait. Sky-High
did not understand, and the grace was concluded amid smiles.
Sky-High wondered much what had made the family sleepy at that time of
the day. They did not go to sleep at the breakfast-table in China.
"The mistress and her people," said he to Nora, "shut their eyes and go
to sleep at the breakfast."
"An' sure, it is quare you are yourself! They were praying. Don't you
ever say prayers, Sky-High?"
"My country has printed prayers," said Sky-High with lofty dignity.
"You're a hathen people. Here we call such as you a 'hathen Chinee,' and
there was a Californan poet that wrote a whole piece about the likes of
you. Children speak it at school. Here is the toast--carry it up!"
Lucy liked to see the little olive-colored "wang" moving about.
One day at the table she requested him to bring her a cup of tea. The
little Chinaman well knew that Lucy and Charles were not permitted to
have tea. He inquired whether he should make it in the American or the
Chinese way.
"In the way you would for a wang," said Lucy.
Sky-High soon re-appeared, his tray bearing a pretty little covered cup
and a silver pitcher.
"Where is the tea?" asked Lucy.
"It is in the cup, like a wang's," said Sky-High.
He poured the hot water on the tea, and fragrance filled the room.
Lucy, with a glance asking her mother's leave, tasted the tea she had
roguishly ordered.
"We do not have tea like this," she said; "is it tea?"
"Like a wang's," said Sky-High, blinking.
"Where did you get it?" asked Lucy.
"Out of my tea-canister," said Sky-High.
Little Lucy did not drink the tea, for little Lucy had never drunk
a cup of tea; but its fragrance lingered about the house through the
day, and set her wondering what else the little Chinaman's immense trunk
might hold.
It had been agreed between the Consul and Mrs. Van Buren that little
Sky-High might talk with the family; and like her husband she found the
Chinese boy "a new book." She asked him many a curious question about
the "Flowery Kingdom," and one day she learned that "we never send our
finest teas out of China." Yes "we" said the washee-washee-wang, as the
neighbor-boys called him.
IV.
HOW SKY-HIGH CALLED THE GOVERNOR.
Cheerfully, in his fine blue linens, the little Chinese house-boy worked
in his cabin a portion of every day. The bluebirds came close to sing to
him and so did the red-breasted robins. Irish Nora and the parrot became
very civil, and he grew fond of Charlie and Lucy.
Some of the boys on their way to and from school made his only real
annoyance. Sometimes when his smoothing-iron was moving silently under
his loose-sleeved hand, or he was hanging the snowy clothes on the
lines, they would hide behind a tree or corner, and shy sticks at him
calling, "washee-washee-wang!" He bore it all in an unselfish temper,
until one day a big lump of dirt fell upon one of little Lucy's dainty
muslin frocks as he was ironing it. Then he said something that sounded
like, "cockle-cockle-cockle," and closed all the doors and windows.
At this crisis Charles and Lucy came to his side. They set wide again
the doors and windows of the cabin under the green boughs, and promised
him that they would forever be his true friends and protectors. "It is
time we began to treat him like a wang, as mother wished," said Lucy to
Charlie.
"The American boys throw dirt at me in the street," admitted little
Sky-High, in a reluctant tone--he did not like to bear witness against
anyone in this sunshiny world.
"I will go out with you," said Charlie, "when you are sent out to do
errands. I will stand between you and the dirt. The dirt comes out of
their souls."
"And I will watch around the corners and speak to them," said Lucy.
Sky-High's heart bounded at these pledges of friendship, and he leaped
about in a way that made the parrot laugh--sometimes he had the parrot
in his cabin, and taught it Chinese words. "The sun shines for all, the
earth blossoms for all," he said to the children; "it is only the heart
that needs washee-washee and smoothee-smoothee. Everything will be
better by and by. I talk flowery talk, like home, out here among the
birds, butterflies, and bees."