The Best Short Stories of 1919 | Page 8

for the puddings; and tiny saucer-like platters for the vegetables. The
tea-cups, saucered and lidded, but unhandled, stood in a row before the
polished brass hot-water kettle.
The whole room was full of a stirring, wakening life, of the crackling
straw fire, of the steaming rice, all white and separate-kerneled in its
great, shallow, black iron kettles, lidded with those heavy hand-made
wooden lids, while the boiling tea water hissed, and spat out a snake of
white steam.
With that curious democracy of China, where high and low alike are
friendly, Dong-Yung hurried into her beloved kitchen.
"Has the master come?" asked the serving maid.
"Coming, coming," Dong-Yung answered. "I myself will take in his
morning rice, after I have offered the morning oblations to the gods."
Dong-Yung selected two of the daintiest blue-and-white rice-pattern
bowls. The cook lifted off the wooden lid of the rice-kettle, and
Dong-Yung scooped up a dipperful of the snow-white kernels. On the

tiny shelf before each god, the father and mother god of the household,
Dong-Yung placed her offering. She stood off a moment, surveying
them in pleased satisfaction--the round, blue bowls, with the faint
tracery of light; the complacent gods above, red and green and crimson,
so age-long, comfortably ensconced in their warm stove corner. She
made swift obeisance with her hands and body before those ancient
idols. A slant of sunshine swept in from the high windows and fell over
her in a shaft of light. The thoughts of her heart were all warm and
mixed and confused. She was happy. She loved her kitchen, her gods,
all the familiar ways of Chinese life. She loved her silken, satin clothes,
perfumed and embroidered and orchid-crowned, yet most of all she
loved her lord and master. Perhaps it was this love for him that made
all the rest of life so precious, that made each bowl of white rice an
oblation, each daily act a glorification. So she flung out her arms and
bent her head before the kitchen gods, the symbol of her ancient
happiness.
"Dong-Yung, I do not wish you to do this any more."
Dong-Yung turned, her obeisance half arrested in mid-air. Foh-Kyung
stood in the doorway.
"My lord," stammered Dong-Yung, "I did not understand your
meaning."
"I know that, little Flower in my House. The new meaning is hard to
understand. I, too, am but a blind child unused to the touch of the road.
But the kitchen gods matter no more; we pray to a spirit."
Foh-Kyung, in his long apricot-colored garment, crossed the threshold
of the kitchen, crossed the shadow and sunlight that striped the bare
board floor, and stood before the kitchen gods. His eyes were on a level
with theirs, strange, painted wooden eyes that stared forth inscrutably
into the eating centuries. Dong-Yung stood half bowed, breathless with
a quick, cold fear. The cook, one hand holding a shiny brown dipper,
the other a porcelain dish, stood motionless at the wooden table under
the window. From behind the stove peeped the frightened face of one
of the fire-tenders. The whole room was turned to stone, motionless,

expectant, awaiting the releasing moment of arousement--all, that is,
but the creeping sunshine, sliding nearer and nearer the crossed feet of
the kitchen gods; and the hissing steam fire, warming, coddling the
hearts of the gods. Sun at their feet, fire at their hearts, food before
them, and mortals turned to stone!
Foh-Kyung laughed softly, standing there, eye-level with the kitchen
gods. He stretched out his two hands, and caught a god in each. A
shudder ran through the motionless room.
"It is wickedness!" The porcelain dish fell from the hand of the cook,
and a thousand rice-kernels, like scattered pearls, ran over the floor.
"A blasphemer," the fire-tender whispered, peering around the stove
with terrified eyes. "This household will bite off great bitterness."
Foh-Kyung walked around the corner of the stove. The fire sparked and
hissed. The sunshine filled the empty niche. Not since the building of
the house and the planting of the tall black cypress trees around it, a
hundred years ago, had the sunlight touched the wall behind the kitchen
gods.
Dong-Yung sprang into life. She caught Foh-Kyung's sleeve.
"O my Lord and Master, I pray you, do not utterly cast them away into
the burning, fiery furnace! I fear some evil will befall us."
Foh-Kyung, a green-and-gold god in each hand, stopped and turned.
His eyes smiled at Dong-Yung. She was so little and so precious and so
afraid! Dong-Yung saw the look of relenting. She held his sleeve the
tighter.
"Light of my Eyes, do good deeds to me. My faith is but a little faith.
How could it be great unto thy great faith? Be gentle with my kitchen
gods. Do not utterly destroy