And thus was Wan Lee, on the night of Friday, the 5th of March, 1856, born into this veracious chronicle.
The last form of "The Northern Star" for the 19th of July, 1865,--the only daily paper published in Klamath County,--had just gone to press; and at three, A.M., I was putting aside my proofs and manuscripts, preparatory to going home, when I discovered a letter lying under some sheets of paper, which I must have overlooked.
The envelope was considerably soiled: it had no post-mark; but Ihad no difficulty in recognizing the hand of my friend Hop Sing.Iopened it hurriedly, and read as follows:--
"MY DEAR SIR,--I do not know whether the bearer will suit you; but, unless the office of 'devil' in your newspaper is a purely technical one, I think he has all the qualities required.He is very quick, active, and intelligent; understands English better than he speaks it; and makes up for any defect by his habits of observation and imitation.You have only to show him how to do a thing once, and he will repeat it, whether it is an offence or a virtue.But you certainly know him already.You are one of his godfathers; for is he not Wan Lee, the reputed son of Wang the conjurer, to whose performances I had the honor to introduce you?
But perhaps you have forgotten it.
"I shall send him with a gang of coolies to Stockton, thence by express to your town.If you can use him there, you will do me a favor, and probably save his life, which is at present in great peril from the hands of the younger members of your Christian and highly-civilized race who attend the enlightened schools in San Francisco.
"He has acquired some singular habits and customs from his experience of Wang's profession, which he followed for some years,--until he became too large to go in a hat, or be produced from his father's sleeve.The money you left with me has been expended on his education.He has gone through the Tri-literal Classics, but, Ithink, without much benefit.He knows but little of Confucius, and absolutely nothing of Mencius.Owing to the negligence of his father, he associated, perhaps, too much with American children.
"I should have answered your letter before, by post; but I thought that Wan Lee himself would be a better messenger for this.
"Yours respectfully, "HOP SING."
And this was the long-delayed answer to my letter to Hop Sing.But where was "the bearer"? How was the letter delivered? I summoned hastily the foreman, printers, and office-boy, but without eliciting any thing.No one had seen the letter delivered, nor knew any thing of the bearer.A few days later, I had a visit from my laundry-man, Ah Ri.
"You wantee debbil? All lightee: me catchee him."He returned in a few moments with a bright-looking Chinese boy, about ten years old, with whose appearance and general intelligence I was so greatly impressed, that I engaged him on the spot.When the business was concluded, I asked his name.
"Wan Lee," said the boy.
"What! Are you the boy sent out by Hop Sing? What the devil do you mean by not coming here before? and how did you deliver that letter?"Wan Lee looked at me, and laughed."Me pitchee in top side window."I did not understand.He looked for a moment perplexed, and then, snatching the letter out of my hand, ran down the stairs.After a moment's pause, to my great astonishment, the letter came flying in the window, circled twice around the room, and then dropped gently, like a bird upon my table.Before I had got over my surprise, Wan Lee re-appeared, smiled, looked at the letter and then at me, said, "So, John," and then remained gravely silent.I said nothing further; but it was understood that this was his first official act.
His next performance, I grieve to say, was not attended with equal success.One of our regular paper-carriers fell sick, and, at a pinch, Wan Lee was ordered to fill his place.To prevent mistakes, he was shown over the route the previous evening, and supplied at about daylight with the usual number of subscribers' copies.He returned, after an hour, in good spirits, and without the papers.
He had delivered them all, he said.
Unfortunately for Wan Lee, at about eight o'clock, indignant subscribers began to arrive at the office.They had received their copies; but how? In the form of hard-pressed cannon-balls, delivered by a single shot, and a mere tour de force, through the glass of bedroom-windows.They had received them full in the face, like a base ball, if they happened to be up and stirring; they had received them in quarter-sheets, tucked in at separate windows;they had found them in the chimney, pinned against the door, shot through attic-windows, delivered in long slips through convenient keyholes, stuffed into ventilators, and occupying the same can with the morning's milk.One subscriber, who waited for some time at the office-door to have a personal interview with Wan Lee (then comfortably locked in my bedroom), told me, with tears of rage in his eyes, that he had been awakened at five o'clock by a most hideous yelling below his windows; that, on rising in great agitation, he was startled by the sudden appearance of "The Northern Star," rolled hard, and bent into the form of a boomerang, or East-Indian club, that sailed into the window, described a number of fiendish circles in the room, knocked over the light, slapped the baby's face, "took" him (the subscriber) "in the jaw,"and then returned out of the window, and dropped helplessly in the area.During the rest of the day, wads and strips of soiled paper, purporting to be copies of "The Northern Star" of that morning's issue, were brought indignantly to the office.An admirable editorial on "The Resources of Humboldt County," which I had constructed the evening before, and which, I had reason to believe, might have changed the whole balance of trade during the ensuing year, and left San Francisco bankrupt at her wharves, was in this way lost to the public.