PART FIVE
CHUNGKING

36
Starting in Chungking
(1921-22)

The down-river journey was uneventful, and on September 11 we were in Chungking. Two days later Bob and I took Jack and the Chinese student across the river to a Dollar steamer to start them on the long trip to Shanghai. We had friends in both Ichang and Hankow who could help them in changing steamers. Jack had some qualms about escorting a much older youth. He was the son of one of Bob's Chengtu friends, on his way to enter St. John's University in Shanghai. As the young man had never been to the Coast or traveled alone, the father had asked if he could send him with Jack. So Jack, only a high school freshman, had a college student in his care! He even turned his money over to Jack so it could be locked in a foreign trunk.^[1]

In Chungking we wanted to rent a certain foreign-style house which was available and could have been occupied with very little renovation. However, the International Committee [in New York] would not approve the rent of Chinese $125 a month. We were told such rents were not paid, but the Committee evidently overlooked the rates in some other cities, such as Hankow. So we had to take the only other residence that was for rent. For this we paid $75 a month, but nearly $1,000 had to be spent to put it in livable condition. It was a small compound, on three levels (common in Chungking, where everything is built on hillsides), and located on Grazing Cow Lane. Bob tackled the place with his usual optimism. I was horrified at the many large windows, ugly in size and framing, and got off an order to Shanghai for curtain material. It would take several months to get the place in shape.

In the meantime we rented a bungalow belonging to the McCartneys. This

[1] The important consideration was not so much "the foreign trunk" as that the boy was in very crowded dormitory accommodations where security of valuables was a problem. The only way for me to communicate with my charge was for me to go below: he could not come topside to the first-class (foreign) space on the breezy upper deck.

was on the crest of the hills across the river from the city, in a grove of large pine trees—which gave it the name of Pine Lodge. The house was pleasant, but had some odd features. The two lads loved the dumbwaiter from the basement kitchen to the large living-dining room. This spacious room and its adjacent hall had no doors connecting them to any other part of the house, and to reach our bedroom we had to go outdoors and even off the veranda.

One of the many strange things about this house was the way our landlord's wife kept sending up for furniture from it. We had rented the place "as is" and already had found much less than we had expected. One day her coolie came for the only decent mirror. This was the straw that broke the camel's back. I sent him back to tell his master and mistress that if they wanted us to move, we would do so; but I would not allow anything more to be taken from the house. He went dejectedly away, but never came again to bother us.^[2]

Dick was still not well. We found there was a mission doctor who was a child specialist. She ordered no lessons, and plenty of time on the hills among the pines. As soon as the horse coolie arrived from Chengtu with the ponies, the two lads had great fun on the hill paths.^[3] Young Bob, though, had to do his lessons every morning.

The foreign community in Chungking was much more heterogeneous, and more scattered, than in Chengtu. Being a treaty port, there were representatives of foreign business firms. In addition, there were the personnel of gunboats of several foreign nations, and some of the commanding officers might have their families living ashore. And there were more consuls than in Chengtu, including an American consul. Most of the missionaries lived in the city or on the city side of the river. Most of the business people lived across from the city on the south bank of the river. I soon began to have callers, who came in spite of the considerable trip to our hilltop. City friends had to cross the river by sampan^[4] and then climb the hill. One fortnight there was only one afternoon without callers. Everyone was hungry and thirsty when they arrived, so the servants were busy with sandwiches and tea.

[2] By this time, Dr. McCartney had left the mission. He was running a drug and general store. His wife was acquiring and renting summer bungalows on the hills. It has always been assumed that he is Somerset Maugham's "Dr. Macalister" in the story by that name in On a Chinese Screen (New York: Doran, 1922). When I served in Chungking during World War II, Dr. McCartney's widow was still very much present. With the moving of China's capital to Chungking, there had been a great influx of foreign diplomatic, military, and other war-related personnel. Her bungalows on the hills had now become a bonanza (and not just for summer occupancy).

[3] Grace speaks of both horses and ponies. They are the same. The Szechwan horse is a rather runty breed, but it is still a horse.

[4] A sampan is any small Chinese boat. The name, sanban in Mandarin, means three planks and refers to the width of the flat-bottomed hull. The larger boats used for travel between Chengtu and Chungking were wuban , meaning five planks.

At Chungking the Yangtze makes several turns, and the ranges of hills across the river cut off the summer breezes from the city. Soft-coal cooking fires, both summer and winter, make the air smoky. When this smoke haze unites with river mist, there is formed a blanket of cloud which acts like a greenhouse. The air is close and stuffy and much dirtier than in Chengtu. The summers are very bad, and the foreigners have to go to the hills.^[5]

In early October telegraph communications with the Coast were broken, and we heard that ships were detained for a while by fighting in and around Ichang. We finally had a letter from Jack posted in Ichang, so we knew he had reached there safely. lie said the "Dollar" was fired upon on her way down. We had repeatedly urged Jack both to wire and write us when he reached Shanghai. Although he had left Chungking on September 14, we did not hear of his arrival at the Coast for over a month. We then received a letter one day and a telegram the next. Both had been sent from Shanghai on the same day! He had had a somewhat exciting trip, and in Ichang was on a steamer in port when there was some fighting involving troops of Wu Pei-fu. When the shooting commenced during the night, the captain had the foreign passengers (whose cabins were on the upper deck) called to come to his cabin, which was shielded by steel plates. Through an oversight, Jack was not called and lay asleep in his cabin while bullets flew thick and fast and the ship was struck many times. The next morning the ship's officers were astonished to see this twelve-year-old boy emerge from his cabin for breakfast,^[6] Fortunately, I did not learn of this until Jack had been safe for some time in Shanghai.

That fall, under Bob's impetus, the board of directors for a Chungking YMCA was formed and began functioning. Part of a very large and fine guild

[5] From Chengtu it had been at least two days travel to the hills: in Chungking they were just across the Yangtze. But instead of being 6,000 feet high (like White Deer Summit), the Chungking hills were not much more than 1,000 feet above the city. Still, they got one above the fog and smog and high enough to catch some breeze.

[6] Grace's account is not quite accurate: I was not asleep. But I didn't know that the captain's cabin was swathed in boiler plate; and I thought that remaining horizontal was the best position to assume. General Wu Pei-fu had become something of a super-warlord with his principal base in Hupeh, the province just east of Szechwan. The Szechwan warlords had traditionally stayed at home: there was a lot of turf to fight over there, and always the need to compete with greedy intruders from the poorer provinces of Yunnan and Kweichow. But in 1921 Wu Pei-fu began to intrigue to establish alliances that could gain him a foothold in Szechwan. This annoyed the Szechwan generals sufficiently that several of them forgot their usual squabbles long enough to form a joint expedition against Wu. This was to coordinate with a simultaneous attack on Wu by the warlord in Hunan, the province to Wu's south. In the skirmish in which I was "involved," the Szechwan forces held the city of Ichang. During the night some Wu Pei-fu troops, on commandeered Chinese-owned steamers, anchored offshore and bombarded the city. It was probably not by chance that these attacking forces positioned themselves so that the foreign ships along the Ichang waterfront served them as a protective screen. This ended the Szechwan expedition; they evacuated Ichang (looting the banks and main businesses as they left) and returned to their usual domestic squabbles.

hall had been secured for a place in which to start the Association.^[7] Early in December the Y moved into this place, pushing out soldiery who had been in unauthorized occupation for many months. General Yang Sen had a notice posted on the door that the building had become headquarters for the YMCA and that no one was to molest them in their use of it. It was a fine stroke of business for the guild to rent to the Y, as the building had been treated badly by the military. The location and building were excellent for Y work, and Bob had many congratulations for having secured so fine a place. We succeeded in establishing friendly relations with everyone, even with the two Britishers who had opposed the coming of the Y, and ourselves in particular. We understood their zeal and concern for their own organizations, and tried to see their point of view. Bob's idea of the Y was that it should supplement other lines of Christian work, not run as competition.^[8]

In November, Hugo Sandor, a Hungarian, was assigned to Chungking by the American-Oriental Bank of Shanghai. He used to come to our house often. At Christmas we had him and Arba Heald, an American from the same bank, with us at Pine Lodge. We all had a good time in snappy cold weather, with some sunshine to gladden our hearts.^[9]

As 1922 began, we were more and more impatient to move into the house in the city. There was much work to be done. One thing we had learned was that people referred to it as "the house with the awful mantels." We had the over-mantels removed, leaving plain shelves. We found enough tiles for simple fireplace facings. All the walls were scraped and painted buff. Three doors (those leading out from the front hall to living room, dining room, and study) were scrapped. They were terribly chewed (evidently by giant rats!) and were also poorly made. These were replaced by attractive new doors, chiefly of glass set in small panes. These brought light into the hall and improved all three rooms. All the woodwork was scraped and painted white. Screens and outside wood work were done in green.

The kitchen was thoroughly renovated, rat-proofed, and screened. The

[7] The guild hall that the Y was able to get the use of was a huiguan , which is a club of fellow provincials in an alien province. In this case, it was the Kiangsi guild.

[8] Apparently, the Y in Chungking was able to organize itself in less than four months (Bob had arrived in early September), whereas organization took more than four years (1906 to 1910) in Chengtu. Certainly some preliminary spadework had been done, but it seems likely that the most important factor was that leaders of the Chinese community in Chungking knew about the popularity and success of the Y in their neighboring city.

[9] Hugo Sandor had been an officer in the Austro-Hungarian army in World War I. Captured by the Russians, he escaped from prisoner-of-war camp during the Russian Revolution, managed to cross Siberia, and reached Shanghai. His English became perfect, and he had been employed by a local American bank in Shanghai to help staff their newly opened Chungking branch. When Bob and Grace met him, he was unmarried, in his early thirties, handsome, cultured, with a dash of élan and continental gallantry. Grace had just reached forty-two. I think he provided a stimulus to her, both as an intellectual and as a woman, that she had not found in the more limited, missionary society of Chengtu. Their warm friendship (which certainly was never more than that) was lasting and important to Grace.

massive sand filters were arranged in tiers. In them the Yangtze water had to be strained through gravel, sand, and finally charcoal. A new door from the kitchen into the ironing room gave much better ventilation to both rooms, and also made it possible for the flatirons to be heated on the kitchen range. The cook had a fire anyway, so this plan was more economical than the usual practice of having a charcoal fire simply for iron heating. We moved into the city at the end of January 1922, and it took quite some time to get everything in running order.

About this time I attended an interesting social event. It was an elaborate tiffin party given at the home of a British friend by the wife of a Chinese military official. She had begged the British lady to "help her to entertain" in this manner. Every resource of my friend's home had been placed at the disposal of the Chinese hostess, who was to foot all the expenses. The long table was beautifully decorated and appointed. A delicious Western meal was served. Twenty sat down at the table, three or four foreigners and fifteen or more Chinese. The British lady had "spent much heart" and intimated to me that once was enough for her to undertake such entertainment.

Imagine our amazement during the meal when one of the Chinese guests (Mrs. A) began to praise the meal and the arrangements, and to ask the Chinese hostess (Mrs. B) how she was able to entertain in this way in a British home. Hearing that it had been arranged through the kindness of the British lady (Mrs. C) with Mrs. B paying the cost, Mrs. A promptly said (in Chinese, of course), "That is very good. I enjoy foreign food and like the Western ways of entertaining. I have known Mrs. C a long time and am sure she will be as willing to let me entertain here as she has been for Mrs. B—that's true, isn't it, Mrs. C? Well then, please all come here as my guests next Tuesday." Poor Mrs. C was struck dumb and could foresee a long succession of parties to upset her already busy existence. She finally rallied to tell Mrs. A that she was sorry but she already had other engagements for Tuesday. But Mrs. A was not to be done out of her tiffin party and announced in a loud voice, "It cannot be on Tuesday, but Thursday will do. So everybody come on Thursday." In an aside to Mrs. C she remarked, "Don't let it bother you at all. Today is fine. On Thursday we can have the very same things to eat." As we left, Mrs. A urgently begged me to be on hand for "her" party.

I had not intended to go, but a note from Mrs. C urged me to come. The tiffin went off as planned, and practically all the same guests were present. No doubt the pride of the Chinese hostess was satisfied. Perhaps there was a desire to keep up with a social rival in some intrigue of the hour. Real Chinese ladies have a genuineness of breeding which would prevent such presumption. Unfortunately, among the plural wives of warlords, one may find anything but the refinements of culture.

Soon after these tiffin parties, a wife of a general sent word to me that she

had heard that Westerners knew how to knit very cleverly. She also knew that I had children and had done knitting for them. Now she was about to have a child and would be very happy if I would be so good as to knit a complete outfit for it, as she intended to dress it in foreign-style clothes. I am sorry that my kindness did not extend this far. Anyway, the baby was to be born in hot weather, so would not suffer much if it lacked the knit bootees, cap, coat, and panties she specifically mentioned.

Small Bob celebrated our moving into the city by falling over one of the dogs while playing in the yard. lie tore ligaments in his heel, and had to be put in bed with his leg in splints. It gave him a great deal of pain. Often he begged me not to come into the room, saying the floor shook, the bed shook, and everything shook until it hurt him. But he enjoyed his many make-believe games, and the servants were his willing slaves to bring things to him and find ways to amuse him.^[10]

It took me some time to repay all my city calls, foreign and Chinese. I extended my list to include the Seventh-Day Adventist ladies, also a French woman who was the wife of a businessman. Although they had been in Chungking over a year, the Seventh-Day Adventist ladies knew almost no one among the more than a hundred and fifty foreigners in the city. There was a considerable feeling against their church by other missionaries because of their proselytizing habits.^[11] They knew of me, as I had a calling acquaintance with ladies of their mission in Chengtu. The French lady had few friends and was delighted to see me, albeit that we were obliged to converse through her French-speaking Boy.

The Seventh-Day Adventists had gone to call on the lady at one Chungking mission compound. While their sedan chairs were being put down in the court, a gentleman member of that mission, seeing the initials SDA on the bearers' coats, came out and told the ladies he thought they had better not come in to call. In the States many people of all denominations go to the Battle Creek Sanatorium and other SDA facilities, and we do not expect anyone to refuse civilities to people of that faith. Later in the spring I had a tea especially for the Seventh-Day Adventist ladies and invited a few chosen spirits, who were happy to meet them and have tea in their company. We had a jolly time and broke down a barrier or two.

[10] Among the three of us boys, Bob was the one who spent most time with the servants. He was interested in their work about the house and enjoyed talking with them. One result was that he excelled us in spoken Chinese.

[11] The unfortunate Seventh-Day Adventists were unpopular for several reasons. They refused to respect missionary territorial agreements. Their insistence on a different Sabbath was believed to be more confusing to potential Chinese converts than the less-conspicuous doctrinal differences between, say, Methodists and Baptists. Because tithing was successful among their church members in America, their missions were relatively well supported. This led to accusations that they sometimes lured Chinese staff away from other missions by offering higher pay. To many, they were "sheep stealers."

That spring we became acquainted with some of the officers on the two American gunboats in port, the Palos and the Monocacy . When the captain of the Palos was visiting us, he said that he had not been in a real home for over four months. He later entertained us royally in return. Having heard of Bob's fondness for ice cream, there was a large freezer of a delicious caramel flavor—of which we all had more than one dish.

There were several German ladies in the city, so I struck up an acquaintance with them. They were lonely and had no contacts with either the British or the French. I got on very well with an engineer's wife who could speak a little English, and I enjoyed her clever remarks. Frau Fischer, whose husband was in the consulate, gave us great pleasure with her beautiful voice.

All spring we had a succession of house guests. Every now and then the two children had to be moved into our bedroom so that we could have the use of two guest rooms. Among the guests were the Owen Robertses of New York, who were particularly interested in our Tibetan things.^[12] Mr. Roberts talked Bob out of a pair of long telescoping horns. We had a pair of these eight-foot-long horns hanging in our front hall. They were brass and copper, polished until they shone. One Chungking lady was intrigued by them and asked what they were. "Lama horns from Tibet," was my answer, and she soliloquized, "Indeed! Fancy an animal having horns like that!"

Our faithful old laundry boy, Lao Wu, was ill for a month and we missed him sorely. Noticing that he looked poorly that spring, I had asked him several times how he was. He always said he was well. But finally Amah told me that he could not sit down. Lao Wu feared to tell me because he dreaded foreign hospitals and was sure that I would send him to one. That is just what I did. The doctors found that he had a terrible case of piles and needed an immediate operation and rest. I went to see him in hospital while he was lying there still on liquid diet. He was quite upset to have me standing by his bed without him being on his own feet. He came back a bit thinner but feeling well, and his ideas of hospitals were somewhat changed.

[12] Some years later, Owen Roberts became an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court.

37
River City
(1922)

In Chungking there was one constant interest, the Big River. The difference between high and low water levels could be as much as one hundred feet. We soon learned to regulate life by the river's rise or fall. It was most exciting when the summer floods came. The stream rose day by day, sometimes hour by hour. At the city gates the steps became fewer and fewer.

From the veranda of our city house we looked down on the river. The children watched a row of sharp rocks near the opposite shore. In winter they stood out as small islands. In spring they became covered. And in summer they produced a bad rapid where many boats met disaster. The sandbank island above the city, now used during the winter as an airplane landing field, became covered by the swirling flood. Then the winter homes of thousands who lived in frail shelters clinging to the cliffs below the city walls had to be taken down. They were like swallows' nests but less enduring. The swift-moving mass of the river's sweep around the city was always impressive; in high water it was awesome. Daily in high water, the river took its toll in life; I saw many boats sunk and lives lost there.

Life in Chungking was quite different from life in Chengtu. The Chungking streets were dirty, but I have heard doctors say that Chungking is better off for sanitation than most Chinese cities. Its location on a steep hill of solid rock means that heavy rain (of which there is plenty) flushes away all the refuse and sewage.

Both cities had busy streets, with open shop fronts and all kinds of crafts and manufacture being carried on. But in Chungking there was the added work of the great river commerce. Near the riverbank were huge godowns,^[1] of hides, bristles, Chinese herbs, tung oil, and all the other many exports.

[1] A godown is a warehouse. It comes from a Malay word, gedang . For some reason, no one in the Far East would think of saying "warehouse."

There, too, were piles of cotton yarn, cloth from spinning mills at the Coast, and all sorts of foreign goods. The steps were congested with laboring coolies struggling under large bales, or working in groups to move large containers with poles and ropes. Often our ears were filled by their singsong chants to keep in step as they labored. The junkmen, too, had their own chanteys while they rowed in unison as their long junks came sweeping down on the current.^[2]

There is a push to Chungking affairs, a surge in the seething life on its rock, an urge in ordinary affairs which shows the virility and force of the Szechwanese. Some have said they lack the polish of the men of the Coast. They may not have the suavity of the south. But—when they keep away from opium—they are vigorous, stalwart, and democratic. And in Chungking they show it.

There was also, as I have mentioned, an active and diverse foreign community. One of its activities was a small Community Church. This needed renovation and new seats. Bob and I helped with an ambitious auction and tea. It was a novelty that appealed to many who were tired of appeals for money. There were many unusual contributions of things to be auctioned. And we had a record crowd for the event. A British businessman proved to be an excellent auctioneer. Friend bid against friend. A bachelor found himself with a sewing machine. General Yang Sen bought a sofa cushion with the embroidered names of most of the foreign community.^[3] A few Tibetan things that Bob had donated went like hot cakes. Bob himself won a freezer of ice cream from the Palos . The sale was a huge success and netted $1,000, besides providing fun and a get-together such as the community had seldom seen.

The military situation was very unsettled that year and there were frequent troop movements. One result was that it became very hard to get chair carriers when we needed them. Many men had been seized and forced into serving as load bearers for the military. Those who had not been impressed did not want to run the risk of appearing on the street. We finally had to adopt the practice of the consulates and foreign firms: employ our own full-time carriers and outfit them with uniforms. My tailor produced attractive outfits with red triangles and the letters Y.M.C.A.^[4]

[2] Grace was interested in collecting and transcribing these songs and chanteys. So far as I know, she didn't have much success. There was, of course, nothing like a tape recorder in those days.

[3] Yang Sen was probably the most flamboyant of the Szechwan militarists. He cultivated a reputation for modern attitudes, tried to stamp out footbinding and gambling, widened streets, and supported education and athletics. His ambitions were often greater than his means; he was unable to follow through on most of his progressive plans; and by 1927 he was losing out to General Liu Hsiang, who became the Szechwan Number One. It was Yang's wife (or one of his wives—his "modern" ideas did not include strict monogamy) who initiated the tiffin-giving in the home of Grace's British friend.

[4] The point, of course, was that the soldiery knew that there would be complications if they impressed even chair bearers of foreigners, which shows that extraterritoriality could reach

rather far. Grace was certainly the only YMCA wife riding in a sedan chair with liveried bearers.

Mr. Edgar, our old friend from Tatsienlu, spent some time in Chungking that spring. He was a man with a thousand interests, who could talk well and with authority on many topics. Beyond his righteous zeal in God's work, he had broad knowledge of ethnology, geography, philology, Asia, and his native Australia. Instead of despairing at the isolation of his life on the remote Tibetan border, he made sure that his environment, and his books, enlarged his mind and vision. I owe much to this man, whose knowledge was profound and whose humor was penetrating and kindly.

That year the Dragon Boat Festival, in May, was unusually good. There were more than twenty boats, some with as many as forty-six rowers. Each boat represented a matou and had been training for weeks.^[5] Most of the decorative care was in the dragon heads on the bows of the long, narrow craft. These were gaily painted in reds, blues, and greens, with beards that reached the water, long white fangs, lolling crimson tongues, horns, scales, and all the other accoutrements of dragonhood. Each crew had its own distinctive, colorful uniforms. Each boat had a coxswain, a man to beat a great drum, and many banners. Thousands of people lined the shores, cheering the rival craft. All this went on in the Small River (the Kialing). The swifter waters of the Yangtze were too turbulent and dangerous. I was content with seeing a practice a few days earlier from the safe (and close) vantage of the Dollar Company launch.

The actual day of the races was very hot. The servants all rose early and ate a huge meal to fortify themselves for a day of sightseeing. Amah topped this off by drinking a bowl of molasses. She said afterward that this had been diluted with some hot water. Evidently it was a potent draught! In the middle of the morning she was taken violently ill. She took a lot of Chinese medicine. I tried to help by giving an emetic. She called a Chinese doctor and ate more drugs, but nothing eased her suffering. She lay howling on her bed in her small room which, by the peculiar arrangement of our house, was over our front vestibule. Thus she was very close to the street, and it sounded to passers-by as though someone was being murdered just inside our gate. Bob came to take the children to see the boat races and told me we simply could not have such a screeching going on in our place. Apart from Amah's obvious suffering, it would not do to have such a commotion attracting the attention of people in the street. His verdict was that dealing with it was a woman's job. It was not that he shirked responsibility, but he felt this was essentially an occasion for my offices.

[5] A matou on the rivers in Szechwan is a riverbank area where boats moor or discharge cargo, a landing place. It may also be a jetty or wharf.

Finally, after Lao Wu, the laundry coolie who had lived through his own hospital experience, and Lao Chen, the faithful gardener she had known for years, had talked to her for a long time, she consented to go to the Methodist Women's Hospital. Then no chair men could be found to carry her—everybody was hanging over the city wall to watch the races. Finally, late in the afternoon, we were ready to move her. She was still groaning heart-rendingly, but was too weak to talk. I managed to raise her to a sitting position. Lao Chen sat on his haunches beside her bed; we put her arms around his neck and he held them fast. We helped him rise, and he staggered down the stairs with her on his back. There we laid her on a light bamboo couch, and the chair men carried her off to the hospital with an urgent note.

The hospital folk told me later that it was cholera morbus, and that they were obliged to use the stomach pump before she had any relief. She lay weak as a rag for days; had to have enemas and finally worm medicine; and at last came home a sadder, and I hoped, a wiser woman. Many a time later did I hear her discoursing on the "stomach machine."

The American navy's new admiral paid a visit to Chungking that spring and brought his wife, who I found charming.^[6] When we entertained them at tiffin, she was fascinated by my table decorations. These were particularly nice Chinese hair ornaments of wired gardenias and jasmine buds, the flowers set off by silver beads. A Danish engineer friend had happened that morning to meet a flower seller with a tray of these fragile creations. He bought all the peddler had and had them sent to me, fresh and lovely, just in time to become my impromptu table ornament. When my guest left, I gave them all to her, but their fragrance lives on in my mind!

There was an important mission conference in Shanghai that year. We heard reports of it that were interesting for their diversity as well as their content. Several told of the spirit of unity, of how wise it was that the Chinese should want their own indigenous church without the denominational differences of Western churches, and of progress being made along these lines. Later we heard from the "minority side." A man spoke with bated breath of the dangers confronting us, of how we must expect serious splits in the church in China, of painful events ahead. Bob and I talked long about these matters. He was constantly saying how glad he was to be in inter-

[6] The admiral was Rear Admiral W. H. G. Bullard, who had just assumed command of the United States Navy's Yangtze Patrol and was taking his wife on his initial tour of inspection. In 1922 the Yangtze Patrol was six or seven ships with a combined tonnage of less than 3,000 tons. The admiral's flagship, USS Isabel (950 tons), was unable to navigate the Gorges, so the admiral and his wife had to arrive by a passenger ship of the Robert Dollar line. The strange and surprising saga of the U.S. Navy on the Yangtze is well told by Kemp Tolley in Yangtze Patrol (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1971).

denominational work, such as the YMCA, where there was no need to preach any "ism."

About this time it came to our ears that a certain group was praying for us because we read the books of Harry Emerson Fosdick, and also because these books were distributed by the YMCA Publication Department and could be obtained through our Chungking Y. A few missionaries were much opposed to the liberalism of Dr. Fosdick and prayed that the curses of Heaven might fall on him and his books, and those who spread his doctrines.^[7]

All that spring I was miserable and found the heat very trying. We had rented a Friends' Mission bungalow, but moving in was delayed by repairs. The agent of the Dollar Company had a company bungalow on the first range which he seldom visited. We were glad to accept his invitation to use it for several weeks. Jack, traveling alone from Shanghai, arrived while we were there in late June.

The American community gave a big sports event and picnic on the Fourth of July. We were able to use the playing field of the Friends' Mission Boys School on the first range. The entire foreign community was invited. Bob and I were both on the committee, and the American gunboats helped by providing baked beans and ice cream. After supper there was a program in the school auditorium. A British businessman loaned a generator so there could be movies; an American businessman did some sleight-of-hand; and there were other entertainments. Everyone had a good time, and we decided that 135 must have attended. This was quite a record for Chungking. We kept one Seventh-Day Adventist couple for the night, and Mrs. McCartney took the other couple, so they were not left out. We had eleven people sleeping with us that night.^[8]

The next day we moved to the Friends' bungalow that we had rented on the second range. That made the sixth house we had lived in within a year. I was tired out. White Deer Summit was often in our minds, but we tried not to speak of its cool breezes. This bungalow had four rooms, nicely arranged. There were verandas, and a special corner had been built out to the cliff's edge for view and any breeze there might be. The site was known as Killing Cow Flat, which seemed a bit odd because in Chungking city we lived on Grazing Cow Lane.

[7] Dr. Fosdick, 1878-1969, was a Baptist minister who became a professor of theology at Union Theological Seminary and then pastor of the Riverside Church in New York. He became internationally known as a Modernist leader and spokesman in the Fundamentalist controversies of the 1920s.

[8] It was dangerous and usually impossible to cross the Yangtze at night by sampan. When people living in the city were invited to dinner or an evening engagement on the South Bank, the host normally had to arrange accommodations for the night. When Bob and Grace were spending the summer on the hills, there were few weekends without overnight guests.

The Y was considering another couple for the Y in Chungking. We had been corresponding with them and trying to be helpful. They finally sent word in August that they would not be coming west: the climate and lack of school facilities did not please them.

While we were at the hills Bob went to the city daily, and it was a long, hard trip. Our sturdy chair men who carried Bob expected to be drenched daily, so the frequent rains did not disturb them. They wore only two garments. If the weather was dry, these would be soaked with perspiration; if it rained, they would also be wet. We provided hats for sun and for rain, and they wore whichever was appropriate. He usually had lunch at the tiffin club that had been started by the American-Oriental Bank, and often was not home until after eight in the evening. The Y was going quite nicely by that time, and the rooms at the guild building were attractive and useful. Bob was constantly enlarging his circle of Chinese friends. The general commanding our resident troops had seen and admired Bob's silk shirts, so that summer I superintended the making of several for this gentleman.

We shared a tennis court in a shady dell some two hundred feet below the bungalow. Twice a month I poured tea. Everything had to be carried down from the house. Several times we had sudden downpours and, no matter how we rushed, everything got soaked. I had a samovar for boiling water, and that helped, because some days it seemed as though I poured hundreds of cups of tea.

Some of our rains that summer were truly subtropical, One evening, British friends near us planned a large supper party. They had invited fifty people. The lanterns were hung, decorations up, tables set on the terraces, and an elaborate dinner ready. About 6:30 a terrific storm came up. The cloud effects were such as I have never seen before or since. I had been out calling, and the chair men came running to get me home to escape the storm. Bob had come home early to dress. Just as he was getting into the tub, a window above it was shattered by the force of the wind, and a shower of broken glass fell over and about him. We lived too near to have a good excuse, but even in my chair I got well soaked getting there. Counting the hosts, only twelve made it to the party. Without refrigeration, there was no way to save most of the food. Some of the nearby villagers must have eaten well that night.

There were many fine trees on the Friends' property where we were living, The largest were pines, but we also had laurel, holly, bamboo, banana, tung oil, blue gum, and more whose names I did not know. From those tall pines around our bungalow there was an incessant soft murmur of the upper branches whose susurrant harmony never ceased, day or night. How often I lay listening to that delightful sound, as though the hissing of the sea surge

had been captured far inland by those aromatic branches! Those trees were friends of our summer life in Chungking.

Unfortunately, the hard storms that year took a toll. But much worse happened during the troubles of 1927. The Friends' bungalows, including this one, and their girls' school nearby were all destroyed, and every one of our beautiful trees cut down.^[9]

[9] From 1924 to 1927 the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party worked together in the First United Front. In the name of nationalism, there was a broad campaign against "imperialism," which was often interpreted (by the more radical elements) to include missionary work. Most missionaries were evacuated from Szechwan, and there was some destruction of mission properties. Many missionaries blamed the Communists, but they also used to refer to Chiang Kai-shek, until he turned against the Communists at Shanghai in April 1927, as "the Red general." There will be more on this later.

38
Young Bob to Shanghai
(1923)

During that year I had seen that small Bob was not going forward with his lessons in the best way for his development. He was not happy working alone, and would be better off doing classroom work with others of his own age. He was then eleven, the age at which Jack had gone to Shanghai, and it seemed wise to send him, also. But whereas Jack was pleased to go away, Bob was not at all eager; indeed, he was anxious not to go. To send a boy of that age away from home for ten months is hard; when he has to be pushed out of the home, it is even more difficult for the mother's heart. The only way seemed for me to go to the Coast with the two boys, planning to stay there until Bob felt somewhat at home in his new surroundings. So this trip was in mind during that summer on the hills.

In August there was fighting on the river around Wanhsien. The foreign steamers refused to transport Chinese troops. The angry and frustrated soldiers sometimes subjected the steamers to heavy gunfire. Our American gunboat, the Palos , went down to Wanhsien, but could not prevent ships from being fired on at other points on the river. On one recent trip the Alice Dollar had received more than three thousand hits; more than four hundred went through the foreign cabins! The passengers were in the captain's cabin and bridge, which were protected by steel plates. Miraculously, the only casualty was the captain, and he had only a nick on the chin from a spent bullet. I was glad that I would be with the two lads. No matter what the dangers, it would be better than sitting at home with no word as to their welfare.

It was still very hot, but the time came to move to the city. We were expecting the whole Yard family to stay with us. They were moving from Chengtu to Shanghai, and the two lads and I would travel with them. We and our goods reached the Chungking city house on a Tuesday. That midnight we had a telegram saying the Yards would arrive on Thursday. So we had Wednesday to accomplish a thousand errands, clean house, and get

clothing—mine and that of the two lads—ready for our imminent departure. I told Amah that we would leave the making of guest room beds and such items until early Thursday; we agreed to rise at 5:30 to have plenty of time.

On Wednesday afternoon, like a bolt from a clear sky, there came a note from Jim: "Will arrive at your house in about five minutes." I just had time to slip into a clean dress as they came in the gate. The Boy immediately put on tea. While we were having it, the amah and coolie made beds and arranged their rooms, so all was well. Everyone was excited, and we forgot how tired we were in our joy over their safe arrival. Though hailed by bandits six times, they had never stopped and reached Chungking in excellent traveling time.^[1]

Originally, I had thought I would take Dick to the Coast with me. Later we changed that and he was left in Chungking. He would sleep at home, spend the day at the McCurdys' house, and return home in time for dinner with his father. Mrs. McCurdy would give him his lessons.^[2]

The heat, excitement, and rush of preparations were too much for me. My ankles and knees were painful and began to swell with rheumatic fever. The doctor told me to get out of town as quickly as I could. The last day in Chungking was torture; severe pain, six guests, packing to finish, and orders from the doctor to keep off my feet. We went to the Alice Dollar on the afternoon of September 1. I was thankful to hobble aboard and lie on a deck chair.

The Alice was still full of bullet holes from her recent experience, but we got through quite well. In Hankow, the lads and I had to wait two days for the next ship. I rested and saw the doctor, and the delay did me good. As usual, I had brought along some reading material; this time it was Social Psychology , by E. A. Ross,^[3] and Keynes's Economic Consequences of the Peace . After our brief Hankow interlude, we had a pleasant trip to Shanghai. But when we arrived, on September 12, we found ourselves in the midst of a raging typhoon. Our ship did not even venture up to a hulk but tied up to buoys out in the Whangpoo.^[4] There was nothing for it but to take a tiny, eggshell sampan to reach the shore.

It was always exciting to visit Shanghai. I stayed with good Y friends near

[1] Wind and weather may have helped the Yards to arrive earlier than expected. Probably more important was high water: generally speaking, the higher the water, the faster the current.

[2] Mr. McCurdy was a pastor of the American Methodist Mission. He and his wife were probably Bob and Grace's closest friends among the American missionary community. Their closest British missionary friends were Hetty and Warburton Davidson of the Friends' Mission (see chapters 6 and 7).

[3] E. A. Ross, it will be recalled, had stayed with Bob and Grace in Chengtu in 1910 (chapter 16).

[4] Because of the great fluctuation of water levels at most river ports, steamers tie up to large floating structures, known as hulks, that are usually connected to the shore by some sort of bridge.

the American School. The boys were soon settled in school. I was able to see a good deal of them, particularly of Bob, and of Mabelle Yard, who was getting her family settled in an apartment. Bob had told me to stay on the Coast until young Bob was willing for me to return to Chungking. The lad finally admitted that he liked school "well enough, but not as well as home." I told him I was pleased to hear that; I certainly hoped no son of mine would ever like any school as well as his own home! When I asked if he thought it would be all right for me to return to his father and Dick, he hesitated but at last said, "I suppose so." Within a few days I began to make preparations for the long trip west.

I left Shanghai on October 24. When I arrived on the ship in the late evening, it was discovered that, though my ticket was in perfect order, no space had been reserved for me. And none was available; a British theatrical troupe (The Powder Puffs) on their way to Hankow had filled most of the cabins. The Number One Boy [steward] insisted that I would have to leave the ship. Finally, we discovered that a married couple was getting off at Nanking; if I could find a place to sleep for the first two nights, I could have their cabin. More investigation found that there was a missionary lady with a baby in a two-berth cabin. They were in bed and asleep, but when I explained my situation she kindly rearranged her child and possessions so I could share the cabin. All this time, the two lads and a friend who had brought us down to the ship were standing by. In the exigencies of the occasion, I had little time for last words with small Bob. He behaved well and agreed to do his best.

I had gone to the Coast with one trunk, one suitcase, and one small handbag. With all my purchases, mostly for others, I returned with three trunks, three suitcases, one bag, seven boxes, and various bundles. In Hankow I secured the help of the Christian and Missionary Alliance baggage coolie to transfer my luggage to the Ichang steamer. I had to descend with him into the bowels of the ship and check the fifteen pieces there. He took these and my hand-luggage to the Ichang steamer. I went along and saw everything placed there in a proper way, dry and safe. After this I returned to the city and took a room for the day at the Christian and Missionary Alliance Home. Here I had a good rest, shampooed and bathed, and read nine long letters from Bob, totalling sixty-two pages of his small, fine hand!

Throughout all this trip I was suffering from rheumatism, with swollen ankles and much pain. The weather on the upper river was lovely, but always the air was damp. In Ichang I had a pleasant time with my friends the Windhams of the Dollar Company and got off for Chungking by the Robert Dollar . My friends told me I ought to be going in the opposite direction with that rheumatism. At Wild Rapid the ship had a hard struggle. The paint was burned off our smokestack as our engines labored in vain to conquer the

swift current. Finally, a hawser had to be put out, and the steam winch helped us up.

On November 7, I was back in Chungking. Bob and Dick were on hand to meet me in the early morning. Lao Wu, our laundry man who had been so ill that spring, had been ill again on the day before my arrival. Bob had sent him to the hospital. When he was being carried out our gate, he asked Amah to tell me that he would be back in a few days to do our laundry. On the way to meet me, Bob had stopped at the hospital to inquire about Wu. He was told that Wu had died that very morning.

We all missed him, for he had a warm and cheerful personality. He expected life to be full of labor, and he was grateful to work in a place where he was sure of pay and a roof over his head. Every month he had sent money to his mother for her food. Bob felt that he must continue this help to the old woman, and did so for years as long as she lived. Amah said about Wu, "He had a good home, got money every month, was able to help his old mother, went to hospital with bills paid when he was ill, was buried in a good coffin in a suitable manner. What more could one want? I hope I am so fortunate."

That year some forty Americans got together for Thanksgiving dinner at the American-Oriental Bank's tiffin club. The ladies furnished the dessert—mince and pumpkin pies with cheese—with candy, nuts, and coffee.

It was hard to prepare for a joyous Christmas with two sons away from home. Hugo Sandor and Ferry Shaffer,^[5] our young Hungarian friends, stayed with us over the holiday; and Mr. Spiker^[6] and the McCurdys came for Christmas dinner. Bob had the cutest gifts for us: figures, seven or eight inches tall, cleverly made of dough. Each was appropriate to the recipient: for Mr. Spiker there was a Chinese official in full regalia; for Dick, a student; for me, a Chinese lady. With each figure Bob had written a clever verse. In addition to these jokes, there were other gifts from Bob. He was always keen on a thorough-going Christmas and could always think of longed-for things

[5] Ferry Shaffer was a Hungarian engineer-architect who had been a friend of Hugo Sandor's since they escaped together from a Russian prisoner-of-war camp. He was employed at this time in Szechwan to survey a motor road to be built from Chungking to Chengtu. He became a close friend of Grace and Bob's and was the artist for their bookplate (see chapter 35, note 3).
One day in Yenan in 1944, Chou En-lai remarked that an enemy alien being detained by the local authorities claimed to know me, and handed me a rough piece of paper with the name Ferry Shaffer. Non-Axis in sympathy, Ferry had a good job, so had stayed on in Shanghai under Japanese occupation. By 1944 it seemed a good time to leave. As an "ally," he was able to wangle a travel pass to visit Taiyuan, the Japanese-held capital of Shansi Province. Once there, he went for a walk in the nearby hills until he encountered Eighth Route Army guerrillas, who did not know what to do with this eagerly friendly enemy alien and so passed him along until he finally reached Yenan. The Communists were relieved that I could vouch for him, and I arranged his travel on our Dixie Mission plane to Chungking and on to the United States.

[6] Mr. Spiker (Clarence J.) was the American consul. He was still unmarried and a very literate, worldly, and agreeable person. After the war in 1946, Dick was assigned to the American consulate in Tsingtao and found himself working for Consul General Spiker.

which delighted the whole family. One interesting gift was a large box containing four dozen chocolate bars. It was marked "To R.R.S. from S." Three of our guests had surnames beginning with S. After all had disclaimed it, we discovered that Bob had given it to himself. It was nice that, once in awhile, he did think of himself.

There was a strike at the post office. Salaries had been raised, but the higher grades of employees got a larger percentage increase than the lower grades. The junior clerks struck, and the mail was left unsorted. After some time without letters, I called on the postmaster and he allowed me to enter the sorting room. There I had a fine time and came home triumphant with a huge bundle of mail for us and other bundles for our near neighbors, the China Inland Mission and Mr. Knipe of the Tract Society.

Life was burdensome to me those times because I seemed to do nothing but take medicine, and only by it could I keep going. I was taking calomel and salts twice a week, and stuffing down soda plus fifteen grains of sodium salicylate each day. Still, on one of the last days of the old year, I took my turn at serving tea for the American "gobs" off the two gunboats. This was in the lower part of the little Union Church and followed a concert of Christmas music. I took three immense cakes, lots of cookies, and cheese biscuits. Everything melted before the frontal attack of the sailors. On the way home, my Boy remarked: "Chinese can eat, but, ai ya , those Americans!"

We celebrated New Year across the street with Mr. Knipe and, in Scots fashion, partook of his famous old gander, who had been fattened for eighteen months and had been lord of his compound. Another holiday festivity was the bachelors' costume party, where I received a prize. It was the same homemade outfit that I had worn several years earlier at a party in Chengtu.

In January [1923] Dick started to attend the small Canadian school for foreign children. As the distance was considerable, the streets dirty, and the noon hour short, he had his tiffins with one of the Canadian Mission families. There were only twelve pupils in three classes. Dick was in the second class, but did advanced third-grade work, probably what we would have called fourth grade. After so many years with children at home for daily lessons it was odd to find myself alone every morning. Bob never came home at noon, and the house seemed very quiet with no child at table with me.

Each child has his own separate and special bond with his parents, but it seems to me that the youngest, when he leaves, is the most missed. Others have gone before; the youngest remains and is cherished for that fact. When he goes, the full force of inevitable change comes to the parent and the break is hard. So often one hears an American parent rejoice that the children are away most of the day at school; I never had that feeling, and now, as I look back, I am glad that I didn't. To me, a home without youth lacks something. But, after all, I was relieved not to have to spend my mornings teaching Dick.

The days seemed long when it was dark and rainy. But I still had my classes at the Y, and I was still statistician for the West China Missions Advisory Board. So I managed to keep busy.

In January that year we helped Chinese friends to start a social club, somewhat after the plan of the similar organization that we had belonged to in Chengtu. Married couples formed the membership, and the intent was to foster social contacts of a modern nature.

We missed our old laundry coolie, Lao Wu, very much. As he had always been the peacemaker among our servants, his absence soon showed. In January we had to let our Boy leave. He had been with us for thirteen months, and was the only servant from the Chungking area—the others had come with us from Chengtu. He had always had a bad temper, and Wu had had many a fuss to settle in the servants' quarters. After Wu died, things had gone from bad to worse. Finally, the other servants simply would not work with the Boy.

As far as his work went, he was very good, for he had been well trained while he was with us. He had come green from the country and he left with expert knowledge. He was quick and neat, kept the dining room spotless, cleaned silver incessantly, washed windows with speed and understanding, and was so useful that he left a big gap in the smoothness of the household routine.

When he left, he told the other servants that he was going to get a job with some businessman—"High wages, little work!" Unfortunately, this was only too true. Missionaries might be looked down upon by some, but no business person disdained a servant who had been well trained by a conscientious missionary. At that time there were forty-six bachelors in the Chungking business community. Jobs with them were apparently the ambition of every Chungking servant.

And there was more than good pay. Not working for a woman with a sharp eye meant less work. Our Boy had told the other servants that I could see dirt where he could not. I considered that a compliment,

39
Treaty Port Life
(1923)

Early in 1923 we had word that our furlough had been approved. It was to be the whole year of 1924. We planned to start it by traveling to America via Europe.

When Bob had deferred his furlough and gone to open the Y in Chungking in 1921, the National Committee in Shanghai had agreed that from January 1922 two foreign secretaries would be in the city. Now, in 1923, Bob was still alone. The Y work had been started in an encouraging way, and crowds were coming to the building. But the local Y was understaffed and Bob was working too hard. His doctor had already warned him that he must have a rest. He drank milk as ordered, and faithfully took the medicines pre-scribed—almost the only time I ever knew him to keep to such a regime. But he insisted that he would never be a man to ask favors from the Committee. He would do his job.

One of his duties was to train young Chinese to be secretaries. As part of their course, I was teaching a class in economics. I have never had a more interesting and appreciative class. They would linger after class to bring up all sorts of subjects brought forth in their study. I had been reading a good deal along these lines for many years; summarizing it for a course was as instructive to me as I hope it was for them.

February of 1923 was largely taken up, for me, by a house guest, Kathryn Ross, who was a surgical nurse at the Canadian Mission hospital in Chengtu. Chinese New Year is a relatively slack time for hospitals; Chinese want to be home, even if they are ill. So Kathryn decided to take a month of vacation then, instead of during the summer. She was a good friend of ours from our Chengtu days; and of course it is possible that word had reached Chengtu of our forty-six bachelors. She was pretty, attractive and good-natured, sang and played the piano, rode, danced, and was a charming guest.

The zeal shown by the bachelors in entertaining her was interesting to watch. They enjoyed themselves, and we all had a good time, for in those days there were still such things as chaperons, perhaps especially for a young missionary lady. I doubt if any one month in Chungking had ever seen so many festivities, gay parties, and happy excursions. Between the launches belonging to the oil companies, various navies, and trading companies we never seemed to lack speedy river transport. And there was other transportation as well; one swain insisted on walking beside her sedan chair up all the uneven stone steps and crooked lanes to our house. The tough old chair men at least shortened his trip by speeding up their pace and swinging around the turns with extra gusto.^[1]

The Yangtze was unusually low that spring: at the end of March the river level was two feet below zero. That meant a delay in the opening of shipping. April brought a rapid change. By the sixteenth the river was up to fourteen feet. On April 18 three of the biggest steamers arrived in port, all on the same day and all of them coming straight through from Shanghai. The Robert Dollar was the first one in, then the Loong Mow , and later the Mei Ren .^[2] With their arrival, communication with the Coast was greatly improved, and our lives were not so dependent on the vagaries of the river.

However, life in Chungking had other causes for concern. The military had been squeezing the people very hard. Taxes were being levied in advance. Merchants were being forced to pay all sorts of special impositions. It was surprising to see how much was demanded and how long the citizens endured this kind of brigandage. Perhaps the worst of these military brigands was a freebooter named Chou Hsi-cheng from the neighboring province of Kweichow who had established himself near Chungking. General Yang Sen, who was in control in Chungking, began to talk of the need to "clean up Szechwan" [i.e., push out General Chou]. General Chou accused General Yang of planning to "sell out" Szechwan to General Wu Pei-fu. Preparations for combat began. These involved troop movements, and those always made people nervous. If you have contributed to one band of ruffians, some contact has been established. Who knows what to expect from a new gang? And departing troops are prone to loot.

The city was full of rumors that "soldiers might make trouble at night." The city gates were closed earlier. Load carriers were impressed in great numbers to provide military transport. This affected our water supply, which had to be carried up from the river. Instead of paying 40 cash for a man's load

[1] It was always my impression that Grace promoted the visit by Kathryn Ross in the hope of finding a nice wife for her friend Hugo Sandor. Hugo ended up, some years later, marrying a Hungarian lady—whose relations with Grace were never especially close.

[2] It may be noted that the "winning" steamer was American. A British ship was second.

(two large pailfuls), we had to pay 300 cash or more—and even then sometimes could not get enough to do our laundry.

On April 4 there were reports of fighting a few miles down river. The next morning there was heavy gunfire that seemed close by. There had been many soldiers on the street that morning, and Bob escorted Dick to school. In the afternoon Bob came home to see how things were in the upper part of the city where we lived. The shooting, we had learned, was across the Kialing River—between Chungking and Kiangpei, the town on the Kialing's north bank. I went with Bob to the American consulate to see if there was any late news. While we were there, the firing became much worse. And there was no certainty about what was actually happening.

Our consul thought it would have a good effect if the American navy ships could send a landing party ashore. So he went off, accompanied by Bob and Hugo Sandor, to try to get in contact with the gunboats—which were anchored on the other side of the Yangtze.^[3] The gunboat commanders agreed and sent twenty men. Bob and Hugo then escorted them to various strategic places: two at Dr. McCartney's store, four at the American-Oriental Bank, eight at the American Methodist Mission, and six at the consulate. I got ready to take in some of the Methodist women if they wanted to come to us for the night. Their mission compound was in an exposed position on the side of the city just across from Kiangpei, where the firing was coming from. When they learned they would have a navy guard, they decided to stay with their stuff.

There were several cannon shots during the evening, and rifle fire continued through the night. But on the whole things were not very bad. The next morning Dick went with his father to the consulate. He and the horse coolie soon came back with the exciting news that Yang Serfs flag was still flying over the military headquarters and the worse was probably over.^[4] The rival faction had been driven off. But, as has been too often the way since 1911, the defeated ones only withdrew to plot a comeback, to the future spoliation and sorrow of the citizens.

About the middle of April, the gunboat Palos went up river to Luchow to free some Standard Oil junks being held by bandits. While we had a letup in the almost continual fighting which had surrounded us, we learned that Chengtu was having a bad time. But that was a different war from ours.

[3] As a Hungarian, Hugo Sandor had no claim to protection by the U.S. Navy. Austria-Hungary and Germany had lost their extraterritorial rights in China when they lost World War I. But he was representing an American company, the American-Oriental Bank.

[4] The military headquarters were on the highest point of the city on a hill that looked down on the Yangtze and Kialing rivers. During World War II it was Chungking's air defense headquarters. The only reliable communication with the branch air raid headquarters was visual. When the air raid signals, hung from a tower on the hill, were changed, the subheadquarters could see and do likewise. Now it is a very pleasant public park.

As the formal opening of the Y was scheduled for early May, our Chinese Y secretary thought I should end my class for the staff members early in April so that they would be free for extra work at the Association. However, they were keenly interested in our lessons on economics and begged me to continue. I did so until the end of April and thoroughly enjoyed the class sessions.

On Saturday, May 5, amid tremendous enthusiasm and the Chinese decorations and éclat so loved by the Szechwanese, the Chungking YMCA was formally opened. The building, which was part of an extensive provincial guild hall, had been renovated and remodeled to adapt it for Y use. One feature was a restaurant serving both Chinese and foreign food. And there were some dormitory rooms. These proved to be a popular adjunct, and more rooms were subsequently added. There was a basketball court on one side and bathing facilities on the same level. Everything was fresh, attractive, and in running order.

Of course, regular Y work had been going on for many months, but the Chinese prefer to delay an "opening" until an organization is more than started. It should be in a position to show what it is for and how it operates. General Yang Sen and the American consul were two of the speakers. Thousands visited the establishment; the secretaries were busy for days with extra crowds at movies and lectures, besides all those who came merely to "look see."

Early in May I was happy to have finished my laborious annual job of preparing the statistics of the Protestant missions in West China. Just before sending the material off to the press, I was informed by the West China Missions Advisory Board—whose statistician I was—that it did not wish me to include any records concerning the Seventh-Day Adventists. Their figures had been included the year before [1922], and this had caused discussion and trouble. Now the Board had ruled that they were to be omitted.

I had no sympathy with this instruction. It was true that the Advisory Board felt that it should have been consulted by the Seventh-Day Adventists before they started work in Szechwan. But once they were in the province and carrying on work there, it hardly seemed right to omit their statistics if we meant our public statements that we were reporting on Protestant mission activities. I was going on furlough and giving up the statistician post. But I was embarrassed by having to be the one to inform the Seventh-Day Adventists of the Board's decision.

About this time we heard of a young American missionary who did not like us . At first we were given to understand that he was opposed to the ideals of the YMCA. Then it developed that he was annoyed because we paid our cook eight dollars a month. He was afraid we would cause a rise in wages! Missionaries in China often paid less than a decent living wage, either

because they wanted to be able to keep more servants, or did not want to upset "local custom." But the comparison that they made with what Chinese paid their servants was misleading. Chinese give their servants a small wage in money, but they feed them, clothe them, and provide many other perquisites more adapted to their use than anything that foreigners have to bestow.

June was quiet as far as warfare went. I was not well, but there seemed no way to avoid the committee for the Fourth of July. I tried to do most of the committee work by letter, for people lived far apart and the weather was exceedingly hot.^[5] The gunboats lifted much of the burden of food by baking lots of beans. They also fried many chickens. By packing the sizzling pieces in large baskets lined with oiled paper, they got the meat to us piping hot just in time for the supper. Our menu also included sandwiches, salads, ice cream, cakes, soda water, coffee, and tea. I added some things as the time drew near; it was well that I did, for we later found that at least one hundred and eighty had eaten. Considering that there were only ten American families, we thought that the Americans did pretty well. Of course, we did have the two gunboats. Their help was of the greatest value in many ways. For instance, we did not have to worry about drinking water, because they could supply all the distilled water we needed.

The sports program pleased both adults and children. But the movies scheduled for the evening had to be abandoned. The coolie bringing the portable generator apparently got lost. There were fireworks, however, that partially filled the gap in the program. The sailors seemed to have a good time, and it was fine to have so many people of different nationalities picnicking and competing in sports together. No Germans came and no French. But we had Swedes, Russians, Hungarians, Letts, and plenty of British, with a fine feeling throughout the gathering.^[6] We rented dishes, and I personally had seen them washed and scalded, so I knew there was no danger of illness from that source.

Hugo Sandor's Tibetan bear cub added a good deal to the fun. This animal had delighted our children, so he was taken to the picnic that other children might also enjoy him. In preparation for his public appearance on the Fourth, our lads had tried to give him a bath. Such spitting, fussing, and

[5] The committee work was done by letter because there were no telephones. But it would have taken much too long to send them through the post office. So notes (called chits) were hand-delivered by a coolie. If he was told to wait for a reply, you might have an answer within a couple of hours. "Coolie" was a word used by foreigners for laborers and for the underservants in a household. Because the work involved was usually physical (and often for little pay), an explanation has become, popular that the word comes from the Chinese for "bitter strength" (kuli ). Actually, it is derived from a Tamil word, kuli , for wages.

[6] Admittedly, it was a foreign gathering for a foreign holiday, but one might think that the international goodwill would have been heightened by the inclusion of at least a few Chinese.

snarling!^[7] When we set out for the picnic on the Fourth, there was the problem of carrying the bearlet. There was a compartment under the seat of my sedan chair that seemed to be suitable. The door of the compartment opened forward just behind my legs as I sat in the chair. We tied the rattan door tightly, but in no time the cub had chewed through the twine and was struggling to be free. I could only prevent this by holding the door shut with my hands and feet. I never want to share a chair with a bear cub again, no matter how small he may be.

We had moved to the hills at the end of June. The Friends' had had some repairs done, and an extension had been added to the veranda where we had the best view. The main drawback was that there were no screens; our evenings had to be spent in a smoky haze from burning punk to keep the mosquitoes away. One new improvement was a small refrigerator.^[8] This meant cool drinks, and now and then a dessert like Jell-O, greatly appreciated in our terribly hot season.

Bob went to the city six, and sometimes seven, days a week. It was a long trip. He left home at seven in the morning, and it was usually after eight in the evening when he returned. He had had no vacation in 1922 and seemed to me to be run down. After I had talked a good deal about this, he finally agreed to take Saturdays off during July and August, and a Wednesday now and then. But he had more of a vacation than he had planned.

[7] The bath was a fiasco and we abandoned the attempt. When we came back a short while later, the bear was sitting in the pail, happily splashing himself like a baby. He was a Himalayan bear, about like an American black bear except for a V-shaped white blaze on his chest. Hugo had bought him on the street in Chungking. He eventually became too large for a pet and was given to the (rather dreary) zoo in Shanghai's Jessfield Park.

[8] The refrigerator was like a miracle; it was run by a small kerosene flame. In our hot summer weather, it could not produce much ice. But, as Grace says, we had cool drinks and delicious Jell-O (for which I still have a special fondness).

40
A Near Thing
(1923)

By the middle of July, soldiers were everywhere on the hills, and trouble was in the air. In fact, we were in the midst of war. Chungking was besieged by an erstwhile robber chief who used to be an ally of General Yang Sen. Now he had turned traitor and was taking advantage of General Yang's absence.^[1] His forces occupied the south bank of the Yangtze ("our side," with its hills and summer bungalows), and began to fire cannons at the city across the river. The two American gunboats were normally anchored on the south bank. Now the Monocacy was moved over to the city side to be closer in case of need.

The firing across the river was not very alarming. But ferry boats on the river seemed to be attractive targets. Bob (and many others) had to cross the river daily by sampan. The Palos , on the south bank, started sending a motor launch over to the Monocacy , on the city side, going over at nine and coming back at four in the afternoon. The opposing forces promised not to fire on this launch, but no Chinese were to be transported.

The army defending the city had detained most of the Chinese river craft on their side of the river. Even if boats had been available, the river was quite high, and any attack across it would have been difficult. Chou, the robber chief, looted what there was on the South Bank (particularly the Mint) and sent the plunder south toward his Kweichow home. The reports were that he had brought three hundred mule loads of opium with him from Kweichow to finance this incursion. Perhaps the same mules hauled the plunder home. After about ten days of this stalemate, our besiegers departed silently one night. Everything soon resumed its normal aspect and routine.

[1] This was the same General Chou Hsi-cheng who, in April, had tried to attack Chungking from across the Kialing River. In Szechwan warlord politics, Yang Sen was one of the big boys. Chou Hsi-cheng was small fry. There was a struggle going on for control of Chengtu; this would be of major concern to Yang Sen and probably accounted for his absence from Chungking.

In fact, things became normal enough for there to be a controversy over movies. There were still no movie theaters in Chungking, and movies were a great novelty. One of the British businessmen on the South Bank had a large house and a small electric generator. The Y had a portable projector and films selected and circulated by the National Committee of the Y. The businessman would supply the electricity and the veranda; Bob would supply the projector and film; and the foreigners on the South Bank were invited to a free weekly movie.

We soon learned that some of our Fundamentalist neighbors were grieved that missionaries attended such shows. That "so-called missionaries" (the Y) should sponsor the films was even worse. Papers and declarations concerning the showing of films were circulated. I suppose that many of these people told their Chinese Christians not to have anything to do with the YMCA. Bob avoided argument and would only smile; the Fundamentalists, he thought, put doctrine above love.

That summer was torrid, and there was very little rain. Wells dried up, and very few green vegetables could be bought. We got on mostly with potatoes and large onions. Our lads refreshed themselves by going to a neighbor's swimming pool, a mile or so along our range of hills.^[2] Young Bob rejoiced in earning seven dollars one afternoon. His father had promised five dollars to each boy as soon as he could swim the length of the pool, and I had added two dollars for the first to accomplish this feat. Jack could swim the width, but Bob was the first to accomplish the longer distance.

About the middle of August there were rumors that Chou Hsi-cheng was coming back. He had disturbed us twice already, in April and July, and had soon departed; no one seemed especially alarmed.

When we were at our tennis court on the afternoon of August 20 a number of soldiers appeared. They seemed to be looking around the area and investigating the several paths through and around the Friends' Mission property, which was quite large (about sixteen acres). This did not seem too strange. We were close to one of the important passes across our range of hills. The main road through the pass ran along the north edge of the property. Having soldiers about was quite common that summer. We asked the men what army they belonged to. They were General Deng Hsi-hou's men. And he was (at that time) an ally of General Yang Sen, and so an enemy of Chou Hsi-cheng.

That evening Bob returned late from the city. He reached the house at about nine. We finished supper, and the lads went to bed. I was reading from the Shanghai paper the account of a recent incident at Ichang in which the

[2] The swimming pool was somewhat less than the usual American version. It depended on fresh water diverted from a small stream. When the stream dried up, the pool suffered.

Alice Dollar had been fired on. Suddenly there was much yelling and rifle fire—close by.^[3]

I ran into the bedrooms at the front of the house to tell the boys to lie still in their beds. The walls of the house were brick, the windows rather high, and the beds low. Bob and Dick were in the room at the left of the small front hall; Jack and a friend were in the bedroom on the right. The attack was coming up the hill, toward the back of the house; the safest place seemed to be the front. Of course, we put out all lights. We could hear our servants calling out that this was the house of foreigners, that there were no soldiers present. Still the shots and shouting came nearer and nearer. Bob and I were standing in the corner of the left bedroom, near its door into the hall, and thus very close to the front entrance of the house. Suddenly, we could hear men talking and the sound of their feet as they ran up the brick steps to our front door.

Bob caught my arm and said, "I must speak to those men before something happens." I think he really felt more fear for our servants than ourselves: their lath and plaster walls gave them little protection compared with our brick. The front entrance of the bungalow was a double door. The top half of both sections was glass. The right-hand door stood open, the left-hand one was closed. As Bob stepped into the hall, he was just inside the closed, glass-paned door. At that instant there was the shattering report of a rifle, the sound of splintering glass, and yells from soldiers. I was only a few feet away, but no sound came from Bob. I stepped at once into the long, narrow hall. Moonlight streamed through the front door and I could see soldiers on the veranda. In the gloom of the hall I saw Bob bent over double at the far end, away from the door. He was holding his head in his hands.

I rushed to him and asked if he had been hit. He told me to keep away: he was injured, but must speak to the soldiers. With this, he brushed past me and went to the door. He told the men that we were foreigners, and asked to whom they belonged. One man, perhaps the man who had fired the shot, spoke up and said they were Chou Hsi-cheng's men. Bob had met this general in Chungking, so he told the men he knew their commander and was sure that General Chou did not want foreigners to be molested in this way. "You might have killed me," said Bob, "You had better go away now for we have no soldiers around this place." "All right, all right," said they, and moved down the steps and slowly off the premises.

[3] Grace's mention of "yelling" hardly seems adequate. This was an attack, not just on our house, but against a range of hills. It involved a force of hundreds, perhaps several thousands, of men. The Chinese have always believed that sound effects have an important place in military tactics. In this case, there seemed to be hordes of men, advancing up the hill toward us in the dark, all hoarsely shouting, "Sha! Sha !" (Kill, Kill). So far as we boys were concerned it was a very effective tactic: it was the most frightening sound I have heard in my life. It was, apparently, also militarily effective. Any defenders there may have been on our hilltop very quickly decamped.

I ran to Bob and asked him where he was hurt. Then I saw him groping at the wall of the hall. He was saying, "My eyes, my eyes." "Well," I said, "surely you weren't hit by the bullet or you couldn't be going around as you do." But his remark frightened me. We went into our bedroom and I called to Amah to bring a lamp. As soon as Bob sensed the light coming near, he cried out that he could not have it. Even a tiny hand-lamp was too much. We had to fetch a candle before I could get a real view of his eyes. In spite of pain, he tried with his own fingers to pull up the eyelids so I could look. Amah, the cook, and I all stood there, and all we could see was blood covering both eyeballs. His forehead was cut; his hands and handkerchief were covered with blood. The servants and I exchanged glances: nothing was said. Amah told me later that my face was "like a dead woman's"—fortunately Bob could not see it. I felt an awful despair; but I knew I must do something .

It was out of the question to send for aid; soldiers still ran riot all over the hills, and the doctor was forty-five minutes away. It was clear that Bob's only injury was to his eyes, and that probably by small bits of shattered glass. Boiling water was at hand. With the cook's help, I soon sterilized our eyecup and made boracic solution, cooling it with cold drinking water—thanks to our new refrigerator. With eyecup and abundant boracic solution we washed the eyeballs thoroughly. As it proved later, very good treatment this was. The doctor told me that I had cleared out any glass particles that might possibly have remained within the lids.

After this, Bob lay on his bed fully dressed (neither one of us undressed that night). We lacked ice for cold compresses, so I used hot ones to take away soreness. I think Bob felt he must have lost the sight of one eye. He told me he could bear it if I could! I tried to cheer him. The servants wanted to show their sympathy and concern, and it was hard to keep them out of the bedroom. They asked if they could stay the rest of the night in the living room. I gave permission, so they all brought their sleeping mats and lay there on the floor, the chair men and all. Doors were all left open, so I had them on one side; on another side was the lads' room, and there lay Amah on her mat between the two younger boys. I did not sleep a wink, and could hear the men servants discussing the whole affair in low voices during the night. "If our teacher (Bob) was a man like some of the foreigners, who would care? But he is always kind to everyone. It is a great pity our teacher should be injured when he was quiet in his own house." And so on and on.

That night will live forever in my memory. I learned the value of reticence and discipline. What Bob and I both feared, we did not put into words. The knowledge lay between us; each tried to save the other. We could still hear the soldiers all over the hills, yelling and shooting until it sounded like Bedlam. But the moonlight made it almost light as day. It shone into the living room on the men lying there, and into our bedroom on our beds where we

lay. I threw myself on mine between fixing compresses for Bob. There was the fragrance of pines on which rain had fallen that day, a scent of flowers, a freshness of the night breeze. The dogs whimpered and lay under our beds. They were never allowed in the house, but that night we took pity on them. In the far distance we could hear faint sounds of soldiers, sudden bursts of gunfire, and echoes of turmoil rolling across the hills from range to range. Amah called out to me now and then, telling me that the children slept, or asking what she could do to help.

The chair men had said that as soon as there was light and the soldiers were gone, they would carry Bob to the doctor. At dawn, we got him off in his sedan chair, with a bath towel around his head to keep out the light. The head chair man carried a note to Mr. Spiker, our consul, who lived near the doctor. The chair man was to tell the consul's Boy to waken his master and deliver the note at once. Thus it was delivered before six. Mr. Spiker got up at once and went over to the doctor's. The relief was tremendous when it was found that Bob's eyes were safe. The right eyeball, closest to the bullet's path, was badly cut and always carried scars; but the vision was not impaired. He had had a most fortunate escape.

The rifle had been fired from the hip. The bullet had gone upward, through the glass, close past Bob's head, through the frame of the door into the bedroom, and finally imbedded itself in a comforter folded on a cupboard shelf in the lads' bedroom. When we measured it carefully, it seemed that the bullet missed him by an inch or less. Bob always said that he felt it pass his temple!

A few days later, Chou Hsi-cheng sent an officer to call on Bob and to find out how badly he was hurt. Mr. Spiker came at the same time. We held a thread from the bullet hole in the glass to the hole in the door frame, showing the officer the tiny space in which Bob's head was when the bullet passed. He looked and could make only one remark, "Ai-ya, ai-ya!" General Chou expressed regrets and offered to pay any hospital bill. There was none, so he paid nothing.^[4]

Although I have referred to this man as a robber—and that is what he was called in Chungking in those days—he was highly thought of in Kweichow Province. A few years ago I heard of his death there, and learned that he was considered a benefactor in the city of Kweiyang, the provincial capital.

[4] General Chou was probably happy to express regrets, and genuinely happy that Bob was not more seriously injured. His soldiers on the spot, however, could not—under the circumstances—be entirely blamed. There had been opposing forces on the hill (the soldiers scouting about the tennis court that afternoon). When the attack started, the men on the hill may have fired some shots (we were confused at the beginning about the direction from which the firing was coming). If there had been shots from the defenders (visible as flashes in the dark), they might well have come from the grove of trees on the crest of the hill, just above our bungalow. The attackers were strangers to the area; there was no way for them to know—or for us to indicate—that the house was occupied by foreigners.

I understand that there has been a statue to his memory erected there by friends.^[5]

The very morning after Bob's injury, when it was still none too safe to be going around freely, the news of his trouble flew all over our hills. It was an illustration of how news travels in China.^[6] In some mysterious way it soon became known even to those at considerable distances. Notes began to come in as soon as he returned from the doctor's. By afternoon, when the fighting had cleared away from our neighborhood, men came to call, and more messages rolled in. Everyone rejoiced with us that his vision was going to be saved.

Still Bob suffered a great deal. He had to remain in a dark room for days, and his eyes had to be bathed and treated every two hours. In hot weather this was trying, but our joy that his eyes were saved carried us through these minor discomforts. The shock of the whole affair, however, seemed to have done something to me. I could not sleep more than an hour at a time, and felt on the edge of a catastrophe during most of the daylight hours. At night we felt more restless. The fighting cut us off from the city for eight days, so Bob would have had to take a vacation anyway. During these days there was always the sound of gunfire. One day, five sailors on the Palos were injured by splinters from steel plates being hit by bullets. Shipping was at a standstill. When it resumed, foreign ships were fired on whenever they moved— the military hated them because they refused to transport troops.

The urgent thing now was to get the boys off to their school in Shanghai. Dick had not been very well that spring. Life was so tense in Chungking that we decided to send him to Shanghai with the two older boys. He was only nine, too young to go to the American school as a boarder. However, the Yards—our old Chengtu friends, now in Shanghai—urged us to send him down, saying that they had room and would gladly keep him that fall. As we were to go on home leave in January 1924, Bob had already planned for me to leave early and spend the month of December in Shanghai with Mabelle. This meant that it would be only three months until I would be there with Dick. So we got the three lads ready to leave for the Coast with Hugo Sandor. Small Bob gave us some excitement for two days as he ran a temperature after being bitten by a snake. He also had a headache, but had no other bad

[5] When I retraced the Long March with the Salisburys in 1984, we stopped in a county town named Tungtze in northern Kweichow. It was a pleasant place. After the local historian had told us about the Red Army stopping there, we asked him what else the town was famous for. "For fighting men," he said; "the town is known as the home of generals." Pressed for names, he came up with some early ones and then mentioned Chou Hsi-cheng. "Ah, yes," I said, "my father knew him." I think Grace's story of a statue of the general in Kweiyang can be treated with some reserve. If there was such a statue, it was certainly paid for by the general. And it certainly does not still stand.

[6] Today this phenomenon is known as the "bamboo wireless"; in those preradio days it was the "bamboo telegraph."

effects. Around us, things were happening every day, and we were anxious to get them away.

On Sunday afternoon, as we sat on our veranda trying to keep cool, we heard awful screams. A man accused, our servants told us, of being a spy had been seized by soldiers at the pass below our house. He had been hung up in a tree, feet first, and was being beaten with slender split bamboos. Of course the lads wanted to go at once to see what was happening. I told them not to go, but they found a spot where they could look down and see what was going on.^[7] I said over and over to Bob, "If we can only get the children away before another storm breaks!"

Everything was packed for the three lads. We left for the city on the afternoon of September 3 and put them on the Robert Dollar , scheduled to sail the next morning.

[7] For us boys the adjustment to military conditions may not have been as difficult as Grace assumed. We found enough material lying about to start an ammunition collection. At first this showed the remarkable diversity in caliber and bullet characteristics of bush league warlord armament. Then, when we found that we could disassemble live ammunition, we put together quite a display of different types of explosives. (The family had recently had its periodic series of typhoid inoculations: the small bottles were just fine for powder samples.)
One day the three of us boys encountered a group of soldiers. For some reason which I cannot now imagine, we had our Daisy air rifle, ordered from Montgomery Ward. The interest of the soldiers was immediate. A foreign rifle! It must be something special! When their acquisitiveness became transparent, my quick-thinking brother Bob whispered, "Shoot me." So I did, aiming at his chest from about fifteen paces. He was wearing a heavy khaki shirt, which the BB did not penetrate. The soldiers had no more interest in the air rifle, and we all parted amicably.

41
Grace Leaves Szechwan
(1923)

We wanted to stay with our three lads as long as possible that evening. So we had planned to spend the night at our house in the city. And Bob had obtained a special permit from the garrison commander allowing us to enter the city after the usual time of gate closing. Hugo Sandor, with his bear cub, arrived at the ship soon after us. Our consul, Mr. Spiker, was also there. We knew the officers on the Dollar , and they invited us to remain on board for the night. We had just refused when along came our head chair man to tell us that an attack was threatened and the military had already closed the city gates. Bob gave him our permit, but he soon returned with the word that no permit would suffice because no gate would be opened for anyone. So two of the boys slept on the sofas in their cabins that night to give us beds. We all sat up until nearly twelve talking and having a pleasant time.

We were up with the dawn and were off the ship by five. We told the lads good-bye as they stood on deck in their pyjamas. Dick was game and never shed a tear. It was all a great adventure to him, and he was delighted to be traveling with a real bear. While we were still standing on the steep stone steps leading up from the hulk, I said to Bob that no matter what happened to me, at least the boys were safely out of trouble. Then we turned to get into our sedan chairs and approached the city gate. Outside the gate, and blocking the way, was a mob of soldiers. We finally realized that they had come across the river in the night, running away from Chou Hsi-cheng! Why the gate was not opened for them we could not understand, for they were the allies of those inside. It soon became clear that the gate was not going to be opened for us, either.

There was nothing to do but try the next gate. With us were Mr. Spiker and the Dollar Company agent, Mr. Fleming. Again we found a mob of soldiers-and crowds of people. Between Bob's permit from the garrison com-

mander and Mr. Spiker's card as American consul, the guards at the gate finally agreed to let us through. What a scene ensued! Hundreds pressed from all sides, all hoping to push in with us. Many got between our chair poles. Others crouched like dogs beneath the chairs, hoping to slip through unseen. One huge fat fellow with a tremendous paunch and wearing nothing but flapping cotton pants got between the poles of my chair and shouted to the world that he belonged to me. The crowd laughed, and the guards dragged him out ignominiously.

At last, with our chairs and bearers, we were inside the wall and on our way to the home of Mr. Fleming, who had kindly invited us for breakfast. Having prepared for one man, the cook was surprised to see three guests arrive with him. Soon after seven, we were sitting down to our meal—but not in peace. There had been heavy firing for some time. It was obvious that war was in progress again, and that we would not be returning to the hills that day.

Our kitchen equipment and servants were all at the house on the hill. The Canadian ladies lived near the Y, and they had moved back to the city a few days before to prepare for their school's opening. Fortunately, they could take us in. But our summer clothes were also at the bungalow, and even our bathtubs were there. I had only one dress and, in the heat, certainly needed a clean one every day. This meant washing my dress every evening.

Between this washing, the excitement of our situation, and the intense heat, I could feel that an attack of rheumatism was coming on. To try to head it off, I began heavy dosages of medicine. Every day Bob went to the Y. He should not have been going, but he was restless and felt he should be near the Y staff. Like everyone else, they were nervous and apprehensive. During the days, there was almost constant firing; at night it kept up sporadically. On several days it sounded as though there was cannon fire in the hills in the direction of our bungalow. We could imagine the state of mind of our servants, alone so long without news from us. It was well into September and they had not yet been paid for August.

We were having our own troubles. Bob had a bad attack of asthma and puffed terribly at night. I slept poorly anyway, and worse than usual with the shooting and Bob's labored breathing. During the day I went with Bob to the Y because his eyes still gave him trouble and he could not read. He could really do little except sit in a dark corner and talk to those who came to him, but he seemed to be a great comfort to his associates. The Y was hit by bullets, and so was the house where we were staying, but the chief damage was to roof tiles.

After eight days we were finally able to cross the river and get back to the bungalow. I am sure I never spent a longer eight days in all my life. Fighting at the pass near our bungalow had been very fierce and many were killed.

The fighting had gone on night and day and must have terrified the servants. Indeed, the cook reported that during one spell they had lain fiat on the floor of our living room for thirty-six hours, not even daring to get up to cook or eat food. They may have lain on our beds, too, but more likely under them. We told them we intended to move into the city at once—no one ever saw any house servants work with greater zeal. One would have thought that the walls of Chungking were those of Heaven itself! In two days we and all our belongings were again in the city house.

Bob's eyes were not doing as well as at first, and the prescribed drops kept him from being able to read. I continued to go to the Y with him and wrote dozens of notes and letters for him while he sat talking in dark corners. Sometimes I wondered if I should not have bundled him off to the Coast with the three lads. Several weeks after the event we heard from the National Committee in Shanghai. They hoped Bob had a good doctor and was getting well. No word came about anyone to take up his work. He began to wonder a bit about that, it being twenty months past the time that he had been promised an assistant.

Though Bob could not read, he could do packing. He started on this because he had made up his mind that he would get me out of Chungking. I was miserable and my nerves were decidedly jittery. He kept telling me in those days that I had given up too much, and that he was afraid my health had suffered more than he should have permitted. The military situation was poor and no one could tell what might happen. Our house was being hit by bullets every day or so. We had moved into the west bedroom (which had been the boys') because our room had large windows facing toward the hills. From them we could see the flashes of gunfire every night. But even in the west room I slept poorly and roused at nearly every volley. Bob began to be afraid I would have a breakdown and said he would make me leave. I did not want to leave, but we finally agreed that I would go when he could read.

In the midst of all these unusual affairs, Mr. Spiker had to be operated on for appendicitis. We went to the hospital to act as "family."^[1] In plain view from the hospital windows, active war was being waged on the opposite bank of the Yangtze, close to our gunboat anchorage. It was a wonder that patients could improve amid such surroundings. But in those days we had no airplanes and bombs. That was something to be thankful for—though we did not know it at the time.

In the midst of packing at our house, the wives of General Yang Sen, who had taken a house close to us, sent word that they wished to call. (This was

[1] Consul Spiker was not only a bachelor, he was the solitary American on the staff of the consulate. It may seem surprising to those familiar with today's generous staffing patterns that a consulate could actually function with only one American. George Kennan has suggested that American Foreign Service establishments may even have been more efficient in the lean old days.

the proper old-style Chinese etiquette.) I replied that I was sorry that I could not receive guests because I was leaving soon and already packing. Twice they repeated this desire, and twice I sent word that I was not receiving calls. I even told my servants to tell them l was ill, for I really was too ill and nervous to start entertaining Chinese ladies, or anyone else. Also I felt that these ladies might ask embarrassing questions regarding coming to our house in case of danger. I told Bob I was sure there was something behind their urgency in wanting to call.

At the end of September there was a long-drawn-out battle about a mile and a quarter, as the crow flies, from our house. We could watch it all from our windows and it was much too close for comfort. Fortunately, we had plenty to do. I helped Bob at the Y, and such time as we had at home was spent in packing. It rained almost every day, and this had delayed such jobs as blanket washing, which I wanted done before packing them.

In the midst of all this, we learned that one of our good Chinese friends was being held by Chou Hsi-cheng as a spy. He was a peaceable merchant, and they were probably holding him to squeeze money out of his family. On the strength of the injury to his eyes, Bob asked the general to release this man. Later, Bob had the consolation of knowing that his trouble had brought safety to one man who had been in imminent danger of losing his life. Some new American YWCA secretaries arrived from Shanghai en route to Chengtu, but I did not try to have them stay with us. We were too far in our packing, and they would be safer in a less exposed location.

Thus passed the days. When we met friends all the talk was of warfare and this or that item of news. We felt caught in an endless whirl of narrow escapes, bullets spattering on walls, and such items. Mrs. McCartney, sitting at her desk in their flat, was endangered by a bullet which passed over the desk and close to her head. Early in October our neighbor, Mr. Hick of the China Inland Mission, was at the McCartneys'. He asked about this narrow escape. The doctor insisted on escorting him upstairs to see the actual spot of his wife's close call. As they stood there near the window talking of bullets, one hit Mr. Hick in the neck. He cried out that he had been hit, and put his hand up to a wound on one side of his neck. The doctor was beside him, could see the wound, and was astonished that Mr. Hick was still able to stand and to talk. While the mystified doctor looked at the wound, Mr. Hick complained of a lump on the opposite side by his ear. The doctor examined it and finally cut a small slit in the skin. Out popped the bullet!

This was our prize war story, and we all congratulated Mr. Hick on his unusual escape. After his experience, we all felt satisfied to hear of bullets, and did not feel it imperative to see where they had passed. Meanwhile, the war continued into October.

Shanghai friends had written to ask that we help an American woman

tourist who would arrive in Chungking by the Robert Dollar . The first day that I went down to the Dollar Company hulk, the ship had been delayed. On the second trip, I learned that the tourist had turned back without braving the last stretch of her journey.

The American gunboat Palos was tied up there at the Dollar hulk, but that did not prevent volleys from being fired in that direction every little while. Bullets would spatter on the stone steps leading up from the water. When we wanted to go or come from the hulk, we waited until a volley had been fired, then hustled to negotiate the steps before another volley. The second day I went down, the captain of the Palos invited me for tea, and I was there when the Dollar arrived. I went on board at once, but then there was a lot of firing. After a long wait, I managed to get up the steps to where my chair men waited in an angle of the massive city wall. The Scotch engineer of the Dollar had offered to escort me up those dangerous steps, but then he would have had to make the return trip to his ship.^[2] I preferred to have him watch me from its deck. In case I was hit, he promised to carry me to the Palos for medical attention.

So in those days we joked our way around, using the lower streets of the city, keeping behind walls, and playing safe as much as possible. However, there was a rhythm in the Chinese shooting. For weeks that autumn soldiers shot from the city gate nearest our house at fifteen-minute intervals both day and night. The volleys were immediately returned by their enemies across the Yangtze. Later, when I saw the elaborate electric signs in cities like New York and Chicago, their recurrent cycles suggested nothing but fighting to me. Even the periodic flash of a channel buoy or lighthouse is, to me, associated with gunfire.

Years later, someone was talking to me about cowardly missionaries being scared out of their stations by fighting and such things. I was asked if I had ever left a place because of warfare. I said I had not—but later this Chungking episode came to my mind. It is true that I did leave; but eighteen strenuous years in Szechwan, our experiences of the summer, and our imminent furlough all had something to do with my going. Anyway, Bob felt the urge to speed me on my way. Throughout those days, he frequently said that he had asked too much of me, and that he could not be satisfied until I was out of the city. And I, in turn, reminded him that it was he who bore on his eyeballs the scars of the fighting.

We were cheered by letters from the boys, safe in Shanghai. Hugo Sandor had looked after them well and they had had a wonderful trip. The small bear, "Teddy," had been a great addition to the party.

On October 13 I packed the last things, leaving the house arranged so that

[2] Every engineer that I ever met on a Yangtze or China Coast ship was a Scot.

the servants could care for Bob easily. I sold my piano that day, so felt I was ready to leave. On the afternoon of the fourteenth, Bob took me down to the Alice Dollar . He stayed for dinner and all night. The next morning there was a fog, so we could not sail until it cleared about half past nine. Then Bob left me. I hated terribly to go and leave him, but he insisted, and I myself was afraid that I was going to be ill. I had even asked the doctor about my heart. He had said that it was not normal, but he thought that I would be all right after I got away from our tense atmosphere.

The trip down the river was not particularly eventful. Soldiers fired on us a good deal. Our American navy guards had orders not to shoot unless our ship was hit. And despite the shooting, we were not hit. So the waiting men, with machine guns ready for the command, did not return the fire. Once, though, we were fired on by bandits; then our machine guns did answer. At several places, we passengers were called behind the armor plates around the bridge. But it was a peaceful trip for those days.^[3]

I was on my way to Peking, so the lads in Shanghai did not expect me. However, it seemed best to go by way of Shanghai so that I could leave my trunks there and attend to other matters. I was to arrange our travel to Europe for early in January of 1924. And I was to lay before the YMCA National Committee the urgent need for a man to relieve Bob. There was now a larger, more active Y in Chungking than in Chengtu, which had been opened so much longer. In Chengtu there were several foreign secretaries, and a larger, better-trained Chinese staff. In Chungking, Bob alone was handling a growing Association with a much smaller and less-experienced staff. To save the work he had done, someone must be sent to take his place.

After a fine visit with the boys, and an exceedingly hectic week of usual Shanghai affairs, I got away on my trip to the northern capital.^[4] A big laugh as I was departing was caused by a letter from my mother. Writing as a careful American woman, she counseled me apropos Bob's eye injury, "I hope this experience will be a lesson to teach you all to keep out of the range of gunfire." As we had all been in our house when the incident occurred, and Bob was even within the building when shot at, we certainly were amused by such advice.

In my letters home there was much of our China experience that I never succeeded in "getting across." Perhaps Mother lacked the imagination to en-

[3] On the day that Grace reached Ichang, the war in Chungking ended. General Yang Sen conceded defeat; General Chou and his confederates took over. Because of Yang's alliance with General Wu Pei-fu, it was considered a victory for the Szechwanese (though Chou Hsi-cheng was from Kweichow). But Chou did not last long, and the Szechwanese kept outsiders away until Chiang Kai-shek and his Central Government army arrived in 1935 to chase the Communist Red Army.

[4] "Northern capital" is, of course, the literal translation of Peking—or, more phonetically, Beijing.

ter into any foreign situation. She was ardent for mission work, but wanted to hear of it without touching on unpleasant topics, so that she could experience it vicariously in the abstract rather than the concrete. She certainly read and re-read my letters, which were directed to her and for which she assumed the role of family interpreter. But everything was so thoroughly colored by her own opinions that any deviation from what she expected was not to her liking.

And so, for me, the Szechwan chapter ended. Had I known when I left that we were not to live again in the West, my departure would have been much sadder. The province had been our first Chinese home, and we loved it and its people with a persistent affection. Our small daughter lay in the cemetery there in Chungking. Our hearts were held by the many friends in the province. Also, we had three Szechwan-born sons. And recollections of many happy days.