Little Sky-High | Page 8

he said. "All educated Chinese people can read porcelains. An American porcelain has no story."

VI.
THE MANDARIN PLATE.
Among the heirlooms to be found in the closets of many New England houses is a curious pattern of China plate. This plate is colored blue-and-white, and in the bowl of each is a picture. The picture represents a rural scene in China--a bridge on which are two young people, a man and a woman; a house, and a tree, and two birds of beautiful plumage flying away. Mrs. Van Buren had such a plate, and a platter with the same rural picture, on her dining-room wall.
It was the delight of Lucy to have Sky-High explain to her the meaning of the pictures on the Chinese vases and on an ornamental Chinese umbrella which hung in the reception-room. One day when Sky-High was dusting in the dining-room, Lucy's eye fell on the blue-and-white plate with the picture of the bridge and birds.
"Oh, Sky-High," said Lucy, "mother has a treasure here--a porcelain plate of your country, see!"
Sky-High looked up to the old porcelain. He had seen such a plate a thousand times; so often, in so many places, that Mrs. Van Buren's had not drawn his eye.
"It is a mandarin plate," he explained to Lucy. "It has a magic power; it brings good luck. My people keep those plates for good fortune."
"A magic plate?" Lucy was all curiosity, now. "Tell me the story of the magic plate," she said. "Sit down and tell me. Who are the young people on the bridge? Begin."
"They are the same as the birds flying away. The birds and the young people are one."
Lucy's interest in the magic plate grew. Sky-High promised to tell her its legend at some time when her mother should be present.
Lucy went at once to her mother. "Oh, mother, we have a magic plate!"
"We have? Where?"
"It is the blue-and-white one over the sideboard."
"Oh! is that a magic plate? That was your grandmother's plate. Old families used to value that kind of ware from China--I do not know why."
"Come with me, and take it down, for Sky-High knows the story of the picture."
Mrs. Van Buren went in and took the plate down; and little Sky-High said, "It is the mandarin plate of our country. In the plate you cannot see the Good Spirit in the air, but it is there. This Good Spirit in the air changes people into other forms when trouble comes, and they fly away."
"But what is the story?" asked Lucy.
"There was once a prince," said Sky-High, "whose name was Chang. He was a good prince; and there he is--the young man in the plate.
"And Prince Chang, the Good, loved a beautiful princess, as good as she was pretty; and there she is--the young woman in the plate.
"The prince and princess went to live on a beautiful isle, where was an orange-tree--see--and there was an old mandarin who lived near--see his house there--and he did not like the good prince and pretty princess when he saw how happy they were on the Isle of the Orange-tree.
"So he determined to separate them; and one day, when he was very full of dislike, he went towards the bridge that led to the Beautiful Isle to catch them. But something very wonderful happened."
"Oh, what did happen?" said Lucy. "I can hardly wait to learn."
"The Good Spirit of the air saw the grim old mandarin stealing away toward the bridge to cross to the Beautiful Isle of the Orange-tree, and he changed the prince and princess into two birds and they flew away. See them flying there at the top of the plate!"
"I will give you the plate," said Mrs. Van Buren to Lucy; "for it was your grandmother's plate, and her name was Lucy, and she would be glad, were she living, to have you delight in a legend like that. It is good to think that a loving Spirit hovers over us when evil draws near us--I like the parable of the plate. I thank you for the story, Sky-High. Your country has good stories."
"The story of the mandarin plate," said the little Chinaman, "is also told in my country in a more tragic way; that the lovely girl is the mandarin's daughter, and that he slays the lovers, and that it is their souls that are seen flying away in the two birds. But it is the other story that our scholars like."

VII.
SKY-HIGH'S KITE.
Charles and Lucy wished to give Sky-High a surprise. They had come into possession of a kite which had been described to them as marvelous, and they got their mother's permission to take the little Chinaman to Franklin Park to see them fly it for the first time.
Franklin Park is not far from Milton Hill; and the street-cars readily carry the