Tea On The Great Wall by Chapman Patricia Luce

Author:Chapman, Patricia Luce
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Earnshaw Books
Published: 2015-03-17T16:00:00+00:00

Great-grandfather Rev. Isaiah Potter

Unfortunately Father chose to lecture us frequently on the value of being a hard-working ant and not a useless, indolent grasshopper. Once at dinner he was so cutting to Johnny that my brother ran from the table crying. I just sat frozen until I was excused.

My favorite room was the sunroom that adjoined my parents’ bedroom and the study. Large windows on three walls overlooked the garden and the street. Here I created worlds by writing books—some beautiful, some frightening. My typing and spelling had improved since my first attempts. some were now several chapters long and they looked respectable.

At school we learned another patriotic song: every morning we began the day by singing the Nazi anthem, the Horst Wessel Lied, in unison, followed by several Heil Hitlers, our arms raised up in the Nazi salute, then Deutschland Über Alles, the national anthem. The boys and girls in the Hitler Jugend marched around as before.

I learned long German poems by Göthe and Schiller, and I really worked to learn one Schiller poem, “The Hostage” (Die Bürgschaft), which was dramatic and suspenseful. Two of the lines in particular allowed for dramatic rendition:

“Die Stadt vom Tyrannen befreien!”

“Dass sollst Du am Kreuze bereuen.”

“To free the nation from the tyrant!”

“You’ll regret that when you’re crucified!”

I became a great attraction at my parents’ parties when I recited and enacted this poem. In the middle of the living room, my arms waving for effect, I would dramatically tell of the frightful events. No one could turn me off.

Glowing Pearl, Sew Sew Amah Mary’s daughter, began to spend more time in Tailor’s room, learning the various embroidery stitches. I thought she was very slow in learning the simplest stitches; Tailor kept having to hold her hands to show her how to move the thread with her fingers.

Christmastime came; Mother was back. My parents sent out specially made red cards with a photograph of Johnny and me in Chinese costumes, and good wishes expressed in gold Chinese characters and Western words.

A separate group of people, friends of Father’s from when they were all in the Philippines as young men, received a different kind of card. Each one was sent a worthless stock certificate for a share of a played-out gold mine in Baguio, northern Luzon.

“I guess you left school because you wanted to see the world, Dad?” Johnny observed.

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