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By Root 4227 0

he was as spry as the Chinese, and after a sturdy climb the travelers came at last to the gateway of the walled village, and as they entered and saw the frugal U-shaped homes and the brooding, worm-eaten pole in the central square, on which perched the skull of Char the rebel, Whipple looked about him as if he had come upon familiar terrain and thought: "The climb was worth it. This feels like a New England village. I'm home again, in China." The feeling was intensified when strong, sullen and suspicious Hakka began cautiously gathering about him, and he could see in their conservative faces portraits in yellow of his own ancestors. Motioning to Kee Mun Ki to interpret, he said, "I have come to take one hundred and fifty of you to the sugar fields of the Fragrant Tree Country." There was much subdued discussion of this, heightened by Uncle Chun Fat, who officiously passed among the Hakka his sandalwood box, with the assurance: "Where you're going smells like this."

In the end one hundred and thirty Hakka were conscripted for the Whipple plantations, with promises of twenty more to be gathered from other mountain villages, and as the deal was being formalized with much cautious nodding, Whipple happened to notice that these upland women did not bind their feet, and he pointed to one woman and asked Uncle Chun Fat, "Why are their feet normal?" And the Californian replied, "They Hakka. Not got good sense." And Whipple asked, "Would women be allowed to come to the Fragrant Tree Country?" And Chun Fat replied, "Maybe Hakka women. Not proper Punti women." At the moment Whipple said no more about it, but he thought to himself: "Some day we'll need many Chinese women in Hawaii. Be a good idea to bring these Hakka in. They look strong and intelligent."

WHEN DR. WHIPPLE and his Cantonese guide had returned to Hong Kong, there to wait in Whipple's ship for the arrival of the three hundred plantation hands, Uncle Chun Fat engaged in a flurry of action. He assembled his extensive family in the open area before the newly painted ancestral hall, and on its steps he had an imposing chair placed, in which he sat, wearing his satin skullcap, expensive gown and brocaded shoes. To his right, but a little behind him, sat his legal wife, a woman of fifty, while to his left and farther behind sat the two attractive unofficial wives to which he, as a wealthy man, was entitled. The meeting got right down to business, with Uncle Chun Fat informing his four hundred-odd relatives: "This is an opportunity that may never come again. Think of it!" and he leaned back so that the Kees could see him in his days of lassitude. "A young man goes to the Fragrant Tree Country, works a dozen years, sends his money home to the Low Village, where his wife is bringing up fine sons, and after a while he returns a very wealthy man and takes two or three young wives. He is happy. His wife is happy because she no longer has to work. The young wives are happy because they have a rich man. And," he said dramatically, pointing casually behind him with his thumb, "he can build a respectable ancestral hall in honor of his distinguished family."

He allowed this recipe for earthly happiness to mature in the minds of his listeners and then said, "I am distressed that Dr. Whipple would not take his entire shipload from our village, for we could have supplied him, but even so our opportunity is historic. I am going to point to the strongest young men, and you are the ones who will start for Hong Kong ... in three weeks."

Uncle Chun Fat rose, passed through the crowd, and arbitrarily nominated eighty-six Kees to volunteer for the journey. Some did not want to go, but they were powerless, for wasn't Chun Fat the richest man in the world? Who could argue with such a man? When this job was done their Uncle Chun Fat asked, "We now have remaining sixty-four places for the Low Village. Who should fill them?" And there was public discussion of this important point until the gambler Kee Mun Ki, who was proving to be a rather clever young man, pointed out: "Why not take the men who