CHAPTER IX.
MORE ABOUT THE CHINAMEN.
One man I remember especially among these, who led us a fine dance! He was a tall, thin, intellectual-looking fellow, with a handsome but most cruel face. Some friends from a distance had sent us word that they were coming over for the day, and I had provided a turkey for dinner. All that I could prepare beforehand had been done. Dinner was to be at one o’clock, and I began to be uneasy as the time passed, and I knew the turkey to be lying white and cold and unstuffed upon the kitchen table. It was dangerous ground to seem to interfere, or advise much, and I had already twice said, and the last time with emphasis, that the dinner must be punctual and the turkey well done. After anxious and secret family consultations, however, as the time grew very late, and I knew the great white thing to be still lying on the kitchen table, I went in and told him that he must get the turkey into the oven at once. He made no reply, and went on perfectly quietly with some unimportant job; I waited a moment, and still getting no reply, I repeated my order, adding, “Do you hear, Wong?”
Then he looked round at me, with a leer on his handsome face, and still gave no answer. “Dinner is at one,” I said, trying to keep quiet. “When will that turkey be ready?”
After a moment of silent laughter, when I could see his back shaking, he said, “Turkey leady allie lightie to-mollow, not cookie him to-day—no time!” Then his back shook again, as he bent over his bit of work.
I confess I did not know how to deal with this. Nowadays, in such a plight, I should storm and get very angry, and try to frighten him, for they are all cowards. But I was too uncertain then, and our friends were due directly, and I did not dare risk anything.
However, the end of it was, dinner was just a little late, but to our amazement everything was beautifully cooked and served, and there was no sign of that alarming mood in the grave alert man who waited on us.
I had not then realised how marvellously quick they are; what seeming impossibilities they can accomplish without effort, slip-slopping about in their loose, heelless little shoes with apparently tireless steps. They are very methodical and orderly, and no doubt this is the secret of their quickness. They certainly get through a great deal of work, and with ease too, and have plenty of leisure besides.
One man we had always spent his leisure in sleep. He disappeared regularly after the washing-up of the midday dinner. It was only by chance that we discovered where he took his siesta. One of us went to fetch something from the “cool” cellar we had dug for ourselves, and of which we were very proud, and were startled to find a white figure lying prostrate, stretched across three empty lemon boxes, in the middle of the floor.
So that was where Quong disappeared to, and that was why at times the cellar was locked and the key gone, as we had noticed once or twice. I did not tell the rest of the family so, but I believe he also made his Chinese toilet there, combing his pigtail, and generally setting himself in order all among the milk-pans, and the butter, and the tarts!
He explained, smiling and unmoved, that it was “welly cool, welly nice for rest there.” However, we said he must not sleep there any more.
Most Chinamen are wonderfully clever gardeners, especially delighting in growing vegetables; and when once that nimble white figure is seen busy at work in the kitchen garden, one may pick up some hope that the new cook will quietly settle down in his new place, for some months at least, and that the charms of the gambling houses and opium dens of Chinatown will fade from his mind for a little while. Our present man, who is a capital servant, has rejoiced our hearts lately by making himself very busy in the kitchen garden. Knowing what contrary creatures they are, always doing the opposite of what one expects, we try to “rejoice with moderation,” as an old friend used to advise; but, after all, why not enjoy one’s pleasure with a free heart, and to the full, while it lasts?
We have never done admiring and wondering at the way our present cook, Yung, does his gardening, accomplishing so much, and in such a curiously casual way, popping out between-whiles in his little embroidered velvet shoes, and finishing each time some fresh piece of work in a masterly fashion.
Then besides the hope in one’s mind that this interest will bind him to his place for a time, there is the thrilling expectation of some day eating these same vegetables. One has to live on a ranch, out of reach of Chinese vegetable carts, to know how pleasant that prospect seems.
The first years of a ranch demand so much work for the trees, and all the business connected with the ranch itself is so pressing, that even if a kitchen garden is made at once, as in our case, the vegetables get such poor attention that they are of very little use. Nothing grows here without the closest tending; but with constant care the growth is like a fairy tale. However, very few ranchers find time for vegetables in the first years, at any rate.
Some Chinamen, too, are great readers, and bring with them quite a library of small paper-backed Chinese books. I asked one of these studious ones if they were the books of Confucius that he was reading so diligently, at which he seemed much amused, grinning and shaking his head.
After our fatiguing time of domestic troubles, when the winter season was over, and San Miguel was once more the half empty, easy-going little town, and good Chinamen were ready to take even a place in the country, we got quite a passable cook, bad tempered, however, and very rough in his ways at such times. But we were thankful to have the work done fairly well, on any terms, and we pretended not to notice his almost brutal manner.
I had been warned again and again by friends who had long experience in dealing with Chinamen, not to interfere at all, but to leave things entirely to them. So long as the work is fairly well done and things are clean, what does the rest matter? Most of them are by no means extravagant or wasteful, as servants go; but if such a one should fall to your lot, you may as well dismiss him at once, for you will never persuade him to make the least change. They are so exceedingly stubborn that interference, if it does no harm, is little likely to do any good. In most cases where a change is demanded, they will say “allie lightie,” and go on doing their own way.
As I myself do the choosing and buying of the meat, I also go through the form of ordering how it shall be cooked and prepared for each meal. If my orders accord with his Celestial ideas, they are carried out, and if not, they are not. And that is the end of it. He always serves up something nice, and does not waste, which is surely good enough for any reasonable being.
I confess I do resent a little the half covert smile with which I am received in the morning when I go into the kitchen to give these bogus orders; but I brazen it out, and struggle through the form with the best dignity I can.
One lady friend, when advising me never to interfere about the work, told me of a striking experience she had before she learnt her lesson.
She kept a large boarding-school for girls, and employed a number of Chinamen. The cook, being a very capable and respectable fellow, was the acknowledged head over the others, engaging them and dismissing them on his own responsibility. That was the plan which she had found the best, and as long as he was satisfied, all worked as smoothly as a machine, for he belonged, as most of them do, to some secret society, and whether he was a “high binder,” as seemed likely, or not, they feared and obeyed him as they would never have feared or obeyed her.
One unlucky day, however, she took it into her head to go into the kitchen and prepare some small thing which he had cooked once or twice in a manner that did not please her. She had told him that she did not like it so, but next time it was served in just the same fashion, and she was annoyed. She went bravely into her own kitchen, and prepared it as she liked, leaving him in quiet possession as soon as this was finished.
A large school is a busy place, and no one had time to notice anything unusual or strange till the hour for dinner drew near. Then suddenly it struck all the little community that the house was very still; there was no smell of dinner, and in the dining-room, when the door was hastily flung open, there were no preparations for the meal.
Our friend, startled and uneasy, hurried to the kitchen, to find everything in perfect order, but no sign of Chinese activity, and the fires of the range all grey and cold. A quick search convinced her that they were alone in the house, and in a great state of wonder and excitement she and her friends got together a cold, picnic sort of meal, and ate it up, discussing meanwhile what they should do. As the Chinese chef had been exceedingly well treated, and had also been some years with them, they felt very indignant that he should have played them such a trick for so slight an offence, for my friend recognised that she had committed an offence.
They determined in their wrath that they would have no more Chinamen; they would employ nice, decent women, with whom they could reason, and who would understand one’s point of view. They telephoned at once to an employment agency in the nearest town, asking for the best girls that could be had, at such short notice, to be sent out to them at once.
Soon they arrived, and were spreading confusion and discomfort all over the house—a wretchedly incompetent set. They were all dismissed, and a fresh batch sent out—but, alas! no better than the first.
Then the girls and their teachers, in desperation, determined to do their own work until they had time to make some better plans. All this had taken up three or four days, and one morning our friend was hard at work sweeping her own drawing-room carpet, and making a great noise over it, when the brush was taken out of her hands by a quiet firm grasp, and glancing up, she saw her Chinese chef, looking particularly neat and business-like, after all the tawdry finery of the women servants. He said quietly, “Me do lis; you no do such sing,” and went on with the sweeping as though there had been no break whatsoever in his regular work. Being both breathless with her sweeping, and very glad to hand it over to someone else, naturally also a good deal taken aback, she murmured something or other and went quietly out of the room, and then discovered that all about the house were quiet, quick-moving figures, clad in the familiar white jackets, busy about their separate duties, just as though they had been there all the time. The lesson was very effectual in her case, for never again did she attempt the least interference.
This seems to be an exceedingly long account of domestic affairs, but being so unlike our English edition of such troubles, it may be of interest, or, at least, it may serve to enhance the feelings of comfort and luxury of those at home who can command a well-trained cook, and housemaid, and parlour-maid, not to mention the useful charwoman, and all for less money than we pay our one Chinaman.
(To be continued.)