The Praying Skipper, and Other Stories

by Ralph Delahaye Paine

You Han had no time for explanations. He was expanding in the reflected glory of his own devising, and busy chasing children from under the agile hoofs of the ponies. In their layers of wadded coats, like so many puff balls, the jolly youngsters rolled to the roadside, and the deserter felt a stir of emotion which he could not have defined. Yes, there were homes and firesides and mothers and play and work and love in this land of desolation, and the smoke of the village hearths beckoned with vague homeliness.

The shopkeepers left their wares and the old men in the doorways tucked away their pipes when the procession filled the little streets, and the deserter rode to the yamen like a conquering hero. In the courtyard of the compound other servants waited to escort the "benevolent foreign general" to rooms made ready for him. There was fire in the brick kang, or sleeping-platform, and chickens, eggs, fruit and potatoes, and a fur-lined robe were heaped on a table. You Han vanished, and the outlaw sat himself down in speechless wonderment. Presently You Han returned and announced that the magistrate would be inexpressibly honored to receive the Personage in the evening, and the reason for not inviting him to dine was that he knew the guest would prefer his food prepared after his own strange fashion by his own servant. As in a gorgeous dream the deserter dined, with three attendants squabbling with You Han for the honor of passing each dish. Then he brushed his dusty leggings and blue clothes and summoned a barber.

A little later the guest was greeted as a person of rare distinction by the dignified elderly gentleman in red-silk robes who ruled and "squeezed" the district. The corporal rose grandly to the occasion. The two mingled to a nicety their mutual attitudes of respect, cordiality, protection. They talked laboriously through the doubtful medium of the overpowered You Han, whom the intricacies of the mandarin dialect bowled over from the one side, and on the other such instructions as these from the corporal:

"Tell old Four-Eyes that I'm the personal ripresintative of George Washington and Gineral Grant, an' that when I stamp me fut a million brave soldiers trimble violently; but that because I know a great intelleck when I see one, me heart is swelled with pride to sit down and talk it over as man to man. Poke that into him good and har-r-d."

The official volleyed many questions, and the deserter parried what fragments of them You Han was able to pass along. A military escort to the next village was offered, but the guest declined with polite emphasis. He was not seeking ostentation in public. When he went to his apartments after a surfeit of cakes, wine, and tobacco, Corporal John Sweeney rubbed his close-cropped head and puzzled over his identity. As he curled up on the warm brick kang, he was a deserter fast becoming reconciled to his fate.

"It strains the rivets of me imagination to believe it's rale. I hope there's more miracles in stock where this one was projuced," he murmured sleepily.

Just at dawn he awoke. There was a clatter of voices in the courtyard, and the sound of horses moving hurriedly. Presently the paper of the latticed wall was ripped, and a brown finger popped through. All the fears of the refugee came trooping back with squadrons reinforced. He ripped the door open, rifle in hand. A string of traders' ponies was filing out for an early start toward Peking, and a hostler stood with his face pressed against the hole in the wall, trying to catch a glimpse of the lordly foreigner. That was all. But the deserter saw again the smoky room in the "Chinese City," and heard the Sixth Cavalry squad wheel just in rear of his frantic flight. The "illustrious guest" was again the fugitive, escaping, he knew not whither, from "five years—five years at least."

He kicked the sleeping You Han into action, and the cart was under way as soon as the mule had fed.

"Only thirty miles from Peking," growled the corporal; "not half far enough. An' cavalry is prancin' out to loot, pacify, an' scatter Christian blessings with th' mailed fisht where they have no business to be thinkin' of. I hike till I drop, an' that's me ultimatum."

They pressed on all day until the dun mule swayed in the shafts and the pilgrims were ready to drop by the roadside. The night was passed in a village tavern, for You Han was too weary to organize a reception. The deserter slept fitfully, and awoke often talking to himself. Nervous and foot-sore, he took the trail at dawn of the third day, You Han watchful and worried. As the deserter turned frequently to look behind him, the aspect of the future crushed him, while the imminent past lashed him to persistent flight. Camp, and the close comradeship of men in blue and khaki; the routine round of his army years; the Chicago streets that had known his boyhood; the father and mother who were proud of his record—these and all other links in the chain of his thirty years were as if they had never been forged. Names, faces and scenes of which he had been an intimate part were in an obliterating distance, and nothing that had gone before was given strength to follow him, except the incidents of his escape, and these filled all the landscape with portents.