Light a Candle: A Story of Chinese American Pioneers on Gold Mountain
The students took out their slate boards and nubs of chalk The first word was kindness Chalk clacked on boards and screeched a few times as the students wrote the word in cursive Ms. Lilley had chosen her spelling words carefully to teach the lessons she felt the children needed The next word was generosity Emma heard Sam groan from two rows away Howja spell that he moaned Skip that one Sam Ms. Lilley said You haven't learned to spell it yet From the looks of it Mabel hadn't either On her board was scratched jenerositee Emma sat proudly waiting for the next spelling word She had gotten the first two easily In fact she flew through the rest of the words without a hitch She fancied that she did as good as or even better than Alice whom Ms. Lilley always praised as the perfect student Ms. Lilley read out the correct spelling of each word so that the students could correct their own work Mabel leaned toward Emma 10
When she saw all the words neatly spelled in perfect cursive she said Well I'll be Ma's eyes will pop right out of her head when she hears about you speaking good English and writing it too Erase your boards now Ms. Lilley instructed A swish of cloth followed as the students cleared their slates Mabel continued chatting She says that no China John is born here and if they were it was in a dis ree pew table house Ms. Lilley lowered her chin and stared out from above her spectacles Mabel no talking And certainly not about that Emma felt anger simmering inside her She had met plenty of rude folks in town but Mabel was the rudest she'd ever met yet I live in a nice house up on Pike Street behind the big Chinese store my papa owns Emma hissed through her teeth though she felt like shouting it While it was true that her mama and papa were from China her papa came to California years ago He called the place Gold Mountain He was an honest and hard worker who owned gold mines 11
and a store selling goods to Chinese miners Her papa was a respected man in La Porte and educated too He could speak read and write English quite well He'd learned it in a British missionary school in Hong Kong Girls I run this school with rules and one of them is to shush when you're told Ms. Lilley said She shut her book and looked squarely at Mabel and Emma We may be out in the wilds of California but here in my classroom will follow the rules you Yes ma'am Emma said swallowing a knot in her throat Both of you will stay after class to wash the boards Emma hung her head She had never been made to stay after class before except once when Charlie Buckner had tripped her on purpose and she'd pushed his books onto the floor Most of the kids knew not to test her after that But still she adored Ms. Lilley and hated being on her wrong side Ms. Lilley treated everyone the same regardless of their ancestry or whether they wore rich clothes or tattered ones 12
After class Emma and Mabel coughed as they banged the erasers together Clouds of chalk dust billowed around them White powder settled on their eyelashes and Emma sneezed Mabel laughed and that made Emma giggle For a moment they forgot all about their differences You're not so bad Mabel said as they washed the boards Way better than my two stinkin brothers Emma began to feel the same about Mabel too Mabel seemed like a hard worker who was just rough around the edges Maybe she didn't know how to be polite yet Maybe seeing a Chinese girl was too much of a shock to her After all Emma and her siblings were the only Chinese children around for miles Most Chinese gold miners who came to California were men who were too poor to bring their wives and families to America Let's be friends Emma said She decided to practice kindness just like Ms. Lilley taught them And her papa always did say that folks can't be mean to you if you just show them a little kindness 13
