The Apaches of New York

Little Bow Kum was bought and sold, as was well understood by both Wong Hi, the father, and the man who chinked down his hard three hundred silver dollars as the price, with the purpose of rearing her to a profession which, while not without honor among Orientals, is frowned upon by the white devils, and never named by them in best society. Much pains were bestowed upon her education; for her owner held that in the trade which at the age of fifteen she was to take up, she should be able to paint, embroider, quote Confucius, recite verses, and in all things be a mirror of the graces. Thus she would be more valuable, being more attractive.

Little Bow Kum accepted her fate and made no protest, feeling no impulse so to do. She knew that she had been sold, and knew her destiny; but she felt no shock, was stricken by no desire to escape. What had happened and would happen, had been for hundreds and thousands of years the life story of a great feminine fraction of her people. Wherefore, the thought was at home in her blood; her nature bowed to and embraced it.

Of course, from the white devils’ view-point the fate designed for little Bow Kum was as the sublimation of the immoral. But you must remember that morality is always a question of geography and sometimes a question of race. Climates, temperatures, also play their part.

Then, too, there is that element of support. In the tropics, where life is lazy, easy, and one may pick a dinner from every tree, man is polygamous. In the ice locked arctics, where one spears his dinner out of the cold, reluctant sea, and goes days and days without it, man is polyandrous, and one wife has many husbands. In the temperate zone, where life is neither soft nor hard and yet folk work to live, man is monogamous, and one wife to one husband is the only good form.

Great is latitude!

Take the business of steeping the senses in drinks or drugs. That eternal quantity of latitude still worms its way into the equation. In the arctic zone they drink raw alcohol, in the north temperate whiskey, in the south temperate wine, while in the tropics they give up drinking and take to opium, hasheesh and cocaine.

Little Bow Kum watched her fifteenth year approach – that year when she would take up her profession – without shame, scandal or alarm.

Had you tried to show her the horrors of her situation, she wouldn’t have understood. She was beautiful beyond beauty. This she knew very well, and was pleased to have her charms confessed. Her owner told her she was a lamp of love, and that he would not sell her under $3,000. This of itself was the prettiest of compliments, since he had never before asked more than $2,000 for a girl. Koi Ton, two years older than herself, had brought just $2,000; and Koi Ton was acknowledged to be a vision from heaven. And so when Bow Kum learned that her price was to be $3,000, a glow overspread her – a glow which comes to beauty when it feels itself supreme.

Little Bow Kum was four feet tall, and weighed only seventy pounds. Her color was the color of old ivory – that is, if you can imagine old ivory with the flush and blush of life. She had rose-red lips, onyx eyes, and hair as black as a crow’s wing. One day her owner went mad with opium. As he sat and looked at her, and her star-like beauty grew upon him, he struck her down with a bamboo staff. This frightened him; for he saw that if he kept her he would kill her because of her loveliness. So, knowing himself and fearing her beauty, he sent little Bow Kum to San Francisco, and never laid eyes on her again.

Having ripened into her fifteenth year, and the value of girls being up in San Francisco, little Bow Kum brought the price – $3,000 – which her owner had fixed for her. She kissed the hand of Low Hee Tong, her new owner; and, having been adorned to the last limit of Chinese coquetry, went with him to a temple, dedicated to some Mongolian Venus, which he maintained in Ross Alley. Here little Bow Kum lived for nearly four years.

Low Hee Tong, the Ross Alley owner of little Bow Kum, got into trouble with the police. Something he did or failed to do – probably the latter – vastly disturbed them. With that, waxing moral, they decided that Low Hee Tong’s Temple of Venus in Ross Alley was an eyesore, and must be wiped out.

And so they pulled it.

Little Bow Kum – so small, so much the rose-flower which her name implied – aroused the concern of the judge. He gave her to a Christian mission, which years before had pitched its tent in Frisco’s Chinatown with a hope of saving Mongol souls, which hope had failed. Thereafter little Bow Kum lived at the mission, and not in Ross Alley, and was chaste according to the ice-bound ideals of the white devils.

The mission was ruled over by a middle-aged matron with a Highland name. This good woman was beginning to wonder what she should do with little Bow Kum, when that almond-eyed floweret came preferring a request. Little Bow Kum, while dwelling in Ross Alley, had met Tchin Len and thought him nice. Tchin Len owned a truck-farm near Stockton, and was rich. Would the Highland matron, in charge of the mission, write a letter to Tchin Len, near Stockton, and ask that bewitching truck-gardener to come down and see little Bow Kum?

“Because,” explained little Bow Kum, in her peculiar English, “I likee Tchin Len to mally me.”

The Highland matron considered. A husband in the case of little Bow Kum would supply a long-felt want. Also, no harm, even if no good, could flow from Tchin Len’s visit, since she, the Highland matron, sternly purposed being present while Tchin Len and little Bow Kum conferred.

The matron wrote the letter, and Tchin Len came down to San Francisco. He and little Bow Kum talked quietly in a language which the managing matron did not understand. But she knew the signs; and therefore when, at the close of the conversation, they explained that they had decided upon a wedding, she was not astonished. She gave them her blessing, about which they cared nothing, and they pledged each other their faith after the Chinese manner – which is curious, but unimportant here – about which they cared much.

Tchin Len went back to his Stockton truck garden, to put his house in order against the wifely advent of little Bow Kum. It is not of record that Tchin Len said anything about his Canton wife. The chances are that he didn’t. A Chinaman is no great hand to mention his domestic affairs to anybody. Moreover, a wife more or less means nothing to him. It is precisely the sort of thing he would forget; or, remembering, make no reference to, lest you vote him a bore. What looks like concealment is often only politeness, and goodbreeding sometimes wears the face of fraud.

It was settled that Tchin Len should marry little Bow Kum, and the latter, aided and abetted by the watchful mission matron, waited for the day. Affairs had reached this stage when the unexpected came rapping at the door. Low Hee Tong, who paid $3,000 for little Bow Kum and claimed to own her, had been keeping an eye on his delicate chattel. She might be living at the mission, but he no less bore her upon the sky-line of his calculations. Likewise he knew about the wedding making ready with Tchin Len. He didn’t object. He simply went to Tchin Len and asked for $3,000. It was little enough, he said; especially when one considered that – excluding all others – he would convey to Tchin Len in perpetuity every right in and to little Bow Kum, who was so beautiful that she was hated by the moon.

Tchin Len said the price was low enough; that is, if Low Hee Tong possessed any interest in little Bow Kum to convey, which he doubted. Tchin Len explained that he would talk things over with the mission matron of the Highland name, and later let Low Hee Tong know.

Low Hee Tong said that this arrangement was agreeable, so long as it was understood that he would kill both Tchin Len and little Bow Kum in case he didn’t get the money.

Tchin Len, after telling little Bow Kum, laid the business before the mission matron with the Highland name. Naturally, she was shocked. She said that she was amazed at the effrontery of Low Hee Tong! Under the white devils’ law he couldn’t possess and therefore couldn’t pretend to any title in little Bow Kum. Tchin Len would be wild to pay him $3,000. Low Hee Tong was lucky to be alive! – only the mission matron didn’t put it in precisely these words. If Tchin Len had $3,000 which he didn’t need, he might better contribute it to the mission which had sheltered his little Bow Kum. It would be criminal to lavish it upon a yellow Pagan, who threatened to shed blood.

Tchin Len heard this with pigtailed phlegm and politeness, and promised to think about it. He said that it would give him no joy to endow Low Hee Tong with $3,000; he was willing that much should be understood.

Little Bow Kum was placidly present at the discussion. When it ended she placidly reminded Tchin Len that he knew what she knew, namely, that he in all probability, and she in all certainty, would be killed if Low Hee Tong’s claim were refused. Tchin Len sighed and confessed that this was true. For all that, influenced by the mission matron with the Highland name, he was loth to give up the $3,000. Little Bow Kum bent her flower-like head. Tchin Len’s will was her law, though as the penalty of such sweet submission death, bitter death, should be her portion.

Tchin Len and the mission matron held several talks; and Tchin Len and Low Hee Tong held several talks. But the latter did not get the $3,000. Still he threatened and hoped on. It was beyond his Chinese, comprehension that Tchin Len could be either so dishonest or so dull as not to pay him that money. Tchin Len was rich, and no child. Yes; he would pay. And Low Hee Tong, confident of his position, made ready his opium layout for a good smoke.

The mission matron and Tchin Len hit upon a plan. Tchin Len would privily marry little Bow Kum – that must precede all else. Upon that point of wedding bells, the mission matron was as moveless as Gibraltar. The knot tied, Tchin Len should sell out his Stockton truck-farm and move to New York. Then he was to send money, and the mission matron was to outfit little Bow Kum and ship her East. With the wretched Low Hee Tong in San Francisco, and Tchin Len and little Bow Kum in far New York, an intervening stretch of three thousand five hundred miles might be expected to keep the peace.

Tchin Len and little Bow Kum were married. A month later, Tchin Len left for New York with $50,000 under his bridal blouse. He settled down in Mott Street, dispatched New York exchange for $800 to the mission matron, who put little Bow Kum aboard the Overland Express at Oakland, together with three trunks and a ticket. Little Bow Kum arrived in due and proper time, and Tchin Len – who met her in Jersey City – after saluting her in the Chinese fashion, which is cold and lacks enthusiasm, bore her away to Seventeen Mott, where he had prepared for her a nest.

There are three septs among Chinamen. These are the On Leon Tong, the Hip Sing Tong and the Four Brothers. The two first are associations; the last is a fraternity. You can join the Hip Sing Tong or the On Leon Tong. Your sole chance of becoming a Four Brother lies in being born into the tribe.

Loui Fook told me these things late one night in the Port Arthur restaurant, where the red lamps glow and there is an all-pervading smell of preserved ginger, and added that the Four Brothers was very ancient. Its sources were lost in the dimmest vistas of Chinese antiquity, said Loui Fook.

“One thousand years old?” I asked.

“Much older.”

“Five thousand?”

“Much older.”

“Ten thousand?”

“Maybe!”

From which I inferred that the Four Brothers had beheld the dawn and death of many centuries.

Every member of the Four Brothers is to be known by his name. When you cut the slippered trail of a Chinaman whose name begins with Low or Chu or Tching or Quong, that Chinaman is a Four Brothers. A Chinaman’s first name is his family name. In this respect he runs counter to the habit of the white devils; just as he does in the matter of shirts, which the white devil tucks in and the Chinaman does not. Wherefore, the names of Low, Chu, Tching and Quong, everywhere the evidence of the Four Brothers, are family names.

Loui Fook gave me the origin of the Four Brothers – he himself is an On Leon Tong. Many thousands of years ago a Chinaman was travelling. Dusty, weary, he sat down by a well. His name was Low. Another travel-stained Chinaman joined him. They talked, and liked each other much. The second traveler’s name was Chu. Then a third sat down, and the three talked and liked each other much. His name was Tching. Lastly, came a fourth Chinaman, and the weary dust lay deep upon his sandals. His name was Quong. He was equally talked to by the others, and by them equally well liked. They – the four – decided, as they parted, that forever and forever they and their descendants should be as brothers.

Wherefore the Four Brothers.

Low Hee Tong was a member of the Four Brothers – a descendant of the earliest Chinaman at that well, back in the world’s morning. When he found that Tchin Len had married little Bow Kum and stolen her away to New York, his opium turned bitter and he lost his peace of mind. Low Hee Tong wrote a Chinese letter, giving the story of his injuries, and sent it via the white devils’ mails to Low Hee Jit, chief of the Four Brothers.

Low Hee Jit laid the case before Lee Tcin Kum, chief of the On Leon Tong. The wise men of the On Leon Tong appointed a hearing. Low Hee Jit came with the wise men of the Four Brothers to the company rooms of the On Leon Tong. Tchin Len and little Bow Kum were there. The question was, should the On Leon Tong command Tchin Len to pay Low Hee Tong $3,000 – the price of little Bow Kum?

Lee Tcin Kum and the wise men of the On Leon Tong, after long debate, said that Tchin Len should pay Low Hee Tong nothing. And they argued after this wise. The white devils’ law had taken hold of little Bow Kum, and destroyed Low Hee Tong’s title. She was no longer his property. She might marry whom she would, and the bridegroom owe Low Hee Tong nothing.

This was in the On Leon Tong’s Company rooms in Mott Street.

Low Hee Jit and the wise men of the Four Brothers opposed this. Particularly they declined the white devils’ laws as of controlling pith and moment. Why should a Chinaman heed the white devils’ laws? The white devils were the barbarous inferiors of the Chinese. The latter as a race had long ago arrived. For untold ages they had been dwelling upon the highest peaks of all possible human advancement. The white devils, centuries behind, were still blundering about among the foothills far below. It was an insult, between Chinaman and Chinaman, for Lee Tcin Kum and the wise men of the On Leon Tong to quote the white devils’ laws, or assume to yield them respect.

With this the council broke up.

War was declared by the Four Brothers against the On Leon Tong, and the dead-walls of Chinatown were plastered with the declaration. Since the white devils could not read Chinese, they knew nothing of all this. But the On Leon Tong knew, and the Four Brothers knew, and both sides began bringing in their hatchet-men.

When a Chinaman is bent on killing, he hires an assassin. This is not cowardice, but convenience. The assassin never lives in the town where the killing is to occur. He is always imported. This is to make detection difficult. The Four Brothers and the On Leon Tong brought in their hatchet-men from Chicago, from Boston, from Pittsburg, from Philadelphia.

Some impression of the extent of this conscription might be gathered from the following: When last New Year the On Leon Tong gave a public dinner at the Port Arthur, thirty hatchet-men were on the roof and eighty in the street. This was to head off any attempt the Four Brothers might make to blow that banquet up. I received the above from an esteemed friend of mine, who was a guest at the dinner, but left when told what profuse arrangements had been made to insure his skin.

Tchin Len and little Bow Kum kept up the fires of their love at Seventeen Mott. They took their daily chop suey and sharkfin, not to mention their bird’s-nest soup, across the way at Twenty-two with their friends, Sam Lee and Yong Dok.

It was a showery, August afternoon. Tchin Len had been all day at his store, and little Bow Kum was sitting alone in their room. Dismal as was the day outside, the room showed pleasant and bright. There were needlework screens, hangings of brocade and silk, vases of porcelain, statuettes in jade. The room was rich – a scene of color and Chinese luxury.

Little Bow Kum was the room’s best ornament – with her jade bracelets, brocade jacket, silken trousers, golden girdle, and sandaled feet as small as the feet of a child of six. It would be twenty minutes before the Chinese dinner hour, when she was to join Tchin Len across the street, and she drew out pen and ink and paper that she might practice the white devils’ way of writing; and all with the thought of some day sending a letter of love and gratitude to the mission matron with the Highland name.

So engrossed was little Bow Kum that she observed nothing of the soft opening of the door, or the dark savage face which peered through. The murderer crept upon her as noiselessly as a shadow. There was a hawk-’like swoop. About the slender throat closed a grip of steel. The fingers were long, slim, strong. She could not cry out. The dull glimmer of a Chinese knife – it was later picked up in the hall, a-drip with blood – flashed before her frightened eyes. She made a convulsive clutch, and the blade was drawn horribly through her baby fingers.

Over across, not one hundred feet away, sat Tchin Len and his two friends in the eating room of Twenty-two. It was a special day, and they would have chicken and rice. This made them impatient for the advent of little Bow Kum. She was already ten minutes behind the hour. His friends rallied Tchin Len about little Bow Kum, and evolved a Chinese joke to the effect that he was a slave to her beauty and had made a foot-rest of his heart for her little feet. Twenty minutes went by, and his friends had grown too hungry to jest.

Tchin Len went over to Seventeen, to bring little Bow Kum. As he pushed open the door, he saw the little silken brocaded form, like a child asleep, lying on the floor. Tchin Len did not understand; he thought little Bow Kum was playing with him.

Poor little Bow Kum.

The lean fingers had torn the slender throat. Her baby hand was cut half in two, where the knife had been snatched away. The long blade had been driven many times through and through the little body. A final slash, hari-kari fashion and all across, had been the awful climax.

His friends found Tchin Len, seated on the floor, with little Bow Kum in his arms. Grief was neither in his eyes nor in his mouth, for his mind, like his heart, had been made empty.

Tchin Len waits for the vengeance of little Bow Kum to fall upon her murderers. Some say that Tchin Len was a fool for not paying Low Hee Tong the $3,000. Some call him dishonest. All agree that the cross-fire of killings, which has raged and still rages because of it, can do little Bow Kum no good.