Gods Men by Pearl S. Buck Page A

Fong got up and shut the door and drew the wooden bar across it. Then he sat himself down so near to Clem that his voice could pass into his ear.
    â€œThe Old Empress is about to command that all foreigners leave our city—even our country.” These were the horrifying words Clem now heard.
    â€œBut why?” he gasped.
    â€œHush—do you know nothing? Has your father not been told? You must go quickly or—” Mr. Fong drew his hand across his throat.
    â€œWhat have they done?” Clem demanded. It did not occur to him for the moment that he himself was a foreigner, and the word “they” came to his tongue instead of “we.”
    That his parents were foreign, he well knew. They were foreign even to him, whose birth and whose memories were only of the Chinese earth. They had no money to go away. But where could they hide? Who would dare to take them in? He could not believe that the proud missionaries would shelter them, nor could he ask Mr. Fong to risk the lives of his own family.
    Meanwhile he felt cold and his knees began to tremble.
    Mr. Fong cleared his throat, stroked his bare chin and began again his guttural whisper. “The foreign governments, you understand, are cutting up our country like a melon. This piece is for the Ying people, this piece is for the Teh people, this piece is for I-Ta-Lee, this for the wild Ruh people to the north.”
    â€œMy parents are Americans,” Clem urged.
    Mr. Fong rolled his head around rapidly on his shoulders. “Your Mei people I know. They do not slice with a knife, but they come after the slices are cut and they say to us, ‘Since you have sliced to these other peoples, we too must be given some gift.’ True, true, you Mei people are better. You are against slicing, but you also wish gifts.”
    â€œI have heard nothing,” Clem said doggedly.
    â€œThere is no time to tell you everything now,” Mr. Fong said. “Listen to this one word, Little Brother. Go home and tell your parents to flee to Shanghai. The times are bad. Do not delay lest the way be closed. I have a relative who works in the palace. I fear what is about to happen.”
    â€œMy father will not go,” Clem said sadly. “He believes in God.”
    â€œThis is no time to believe in God,” Mr. Fong replied in a sensible voice. “Tell him to save his family first.”
    He rose, and opening the drawer he removed the blue cotton square from his son’s book and filled it with cakes and fruit. “Take this with you. Remember I do not hate you. If I dared I would ask your family here. But it would do them no good and my family would only be killed with them. We have been warned. Come no more, Little Brother, alas!”
    So saying he thrust Clem out of a small back door. Clem found himself in an alleyway. On the street it seemed impossible to believe that doom hung over the city. It was a morning as mild as summer. The people of the city had risen from their beds, had washed themselves, had eaten, had set their faces to seem the same as on any other day. Clem had as usual left home very early, before the shops had taken down their boards, for Mr. Fong believed that the human brain was most active at sunrise. Often when Clem hurried on his way he met straggling rows of sleepy schoolboys, their books wrapped in blue cotton squares under their arms, already on their way to school. This morning, he remembered now, he had met none, and had wondered that he was so early.
    Now hurrying on his way he knew that schools should be open and yet he saw not one schoolboy, and surely the shops must have taken down their boards, and yet they had not, although the sun was high. He made his way through strangely silent streets toward his home. Yet before he could reach it, at some signal he neither saw nor heard, the city began to stir, not to its usual life, but to something new and frightful. Good people stayed inside their gates, but