Frankie?” he asked me. “You heap crazy. You smart girl, you stay home. Bimeby large trouble.
Sure,”
nodding sagaciously. “I read my China paper tell me. Large trouble Jap-ann. Large trouble Lush” (that was Russia). “Large trouble Yulip” (Yulip to rhyme with Tulip was Europe). “You stay home, I know! I tell you the truth, Frankie!” But I was nearly sixteen and I did not care about trouble in Yulip.
I realize now, as I write, that Wong was a rarely happy man. Philosophical, kind, cynical, amused, shrewd, comfortable, and as powerful as he cared to be. He served many, but was a servant to no one. He said good-bye to us, turned and went into his shop, still nodding, omniscient.
Late that afternoon I said the last of my farewells, to my old friend and teacher at the Convent-Hospital, Sister Marie-Cécile. She stood, a sturdy black and white figure, waving till we had driven out of sight.
The sun had dipped behind the hills and a wind had risen and was blowing cold against us down the channel of the Fraser as we drove home on the Lillooet road. There was so much to think of and so much to do that Mother forgot all about the bungalow; at least, she spoke no more of it to Father, as far as I knew. But next Christmas Day, at old Mr. Trethewey’s house in Cornwall, Mother received a cable which read, “Happy Christmas to both my girls stop hope you will like your bungalow Ellen all my love.”
So now Hetty Dorval’s bungalow belonged to my mother, and my mother had opened the windows and Hetty had been blown out and away. The bungalow had almost begun to mean to me not Hetty, but “That picnic we had on nearly the last day – you remember?” and Father lying there, asleep in the sunshine.
EIGHT
T o be on the ocean, out of sight of land, on an actual sea voyage, and to be sixteen, was then very pleasant. One regards it now as through the wrong end of a telescope. It is illogically remote and disproportionate. On the first day of this voyage, when you are not yet initiated, you watch with respect the passengers being born into this new world which will shortly detach itself from the land world and move off into oceanic space. Passengers are born into this new world via the gang-plank and are delivered by accoucheurs, stewards and others, to whom this is no phenomenon. These passengers, male and female, wear their best hats and usually their best clothes. The reason for this is that their best clothes take more trouble to pack than their old clothes. Moreover, they are more impressive when the passengers board the liner. The next day, or soon afterwards, you identify some of these passengers, not by their clothes which are different and certainly not by their hats which are as different as possible, but by such slight landmarks as noses and chins, or sometimes by the recognition of a striking and memorable face. All this isfamiliar to veteran travellers, but not to you. Some of these passengers then become torpid in deck chairs. But you are not torpid, because you are sixteen. You have joined a small mobile aristocracy whose members at first eyed each other speculatively and even with suspicion, but have since quickly become a closed corporation to which admission is the fact of being sixteen or seventeen but you must have some other commendable quality as well. There are usually hangers-on to this aristocracy who are persons of fifteen or less, but they hardly count. Also, you have become mildly in love with a young American girl (if you are a boy), or with a young American boy (if you are a girl), and you forget that the journey will ever come to an end. You are not sea-sick. Oh no. The lurch and plunge of the ship, the walloping slap of the ocean upon its side, and the buffeting winds are part of your delusion and your enjoyment. People who succumb to sea-sickness, usually adults, are negligible to you and worthy of being despised, for you have not yet learned compassion the hard way. The dining saloon is
Sure,”
nodding sagaciously. “I read my China paper tell me. Large trouble Jap-ann. Large trouble Lush” (that was Russia). “Large trouble Yulip” (Yulip to rhyme with Tulip was Europe). “You stay home, I know! I tell you the truth, Frankie!” But I was nearly sixteen and I did not care about trouble in Yulip.
I realize now, as I write, that Wong was a rarely happy man. Philosophical, kind, cynical, amused, shrewd, comfortable, and as powerful as he cared to be. He served many, but was a servant to no one. He said good-bye to us, turned and went into his shop, still nodding, omniscient.
Late that afternoon I said the last of my farewells, to my old friend and teacher at the Convent-Hospital, Sister Marie-Cécile. She stood, a sturdy black and white figure, waving till we had driven out of sight.
The sun had dipped behind the hills and a wind had risen and was blowing cold against us down the channel of the Fraser as we drove home on the Lillooet road. There was so much to think of and so much to do that Mother forgot all about the bungalow; at least, she spoke no more of it to Father, as far as I knew. But next Christmas Day, at old Mr. Trethewey’s house in Cornwall, Mother received a cable which read, “Happy Christmas to both my girls stop hope you will like your bungalow Ellen all my love.”
So now Hetty Dorval’s bungalow belonged to my mother, and my mother had opened the windows and Hetty had been blown out and away. The bungalow had almost begun to mean to me not Hetty, but “That picnic we had on nearly the last day – you remember?” and Father lying there, asleep in the sunshine.
EIGHT
T o be on the ocean, out of sight of land, on an actual sea voyage, and to be sixteen, was then very pleasant. One regards it now as through the wrong end of a telescope. It is illogically remote and disproportionate. On the first day of this voyage, when you are not yet initiated, you watch with respect the passengers being born into this new world which will shortly detach itself from the land world and move off into oceanic space. Passengers are born into this new world via the gang-plank and are delivered by accoucheurs, stewards and others, to whom this is no phenomenon. These passengers, male and female, wear their best hats and usually their best clothes. The reason for this is that their best clothes take more trouble to pack than their old clothes. Moreover, they are more impressive when the passengers board the liner. The next day, or soon afterwards, you identify some of these passengers, not by their clothes which are different and certainly not by their hats which are as different as possible, but by such slight landmarks as noses and chins, or sometimes by the recognition of a striking and memorable face. All this isfamiliar to veteran travellers, but not to you. Some of these passengers then become torpid in deck chairs. But you are not torpid, because you are sixteen. You have joined a small mobile aristocracy whose members at first eyed each other speculatively and even with suspicion, but have since quickly become a closed corporation to which admission is the fact of being sixteen or seventeen but you must have some other commendable quality as well. There are usually hangers-on to this aristocracy who are persons of fifteen or less, but they hardly count. Also, you have become mildly in love with a young American girl (if you are a boy), or with a young American boy (if you are a girl), and you forget that the journey will ever come to an end. You are not sea-sick. Oh no. The lurch and plunge of the ship, the walloping slap of the ocean upon its side, and the buffeting winds are part of your delusion and your enjoyment. People who succumb to sea-sickness, usually adults, are negligible to you and worthy of being despised, for you have not yet learned compassion the hard way. The dining saloon is
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