Shen of the Sea/That Lazy, Ah Fun

by Arthur Bowie Chrisman

 

THAT LAZY, AH FUN

Doctor Chu Ping was a good man. He was clever and industrious, and wore his pig-tail long. No one knows why he was cursed with such an indolent offspring as that lazy Ah Fun. Perhaps the vice was inherited, with a skip, from Grandfather Chu Ping Fu. They do say in Lao Ya Shen that Grandfather Chu Ping Fu was too lazy even to burn yellow paper on New Year's Eve, or to beat a copper pan in order to scare away the demons. But no matter about Chu Ping Fu. Let nothing more be said of him. Not Chu Ping Fu, but his graceless grandson is herein to be held up for scorn.

That lazy Ah Fun—for such everyone called him—was nothing if not a sluggard, and so he had been from the cradle. What a shameless creature he was—a snail—a lame snail at that. Dr. Chu Ping sent him with a bamboo tube of brick dust to the house of Chang Chi, where Mrs. Chang lay sick with a fever, and greatly in need of the medicine. And did Ah Fun hasten on his errand? No. A thousand times, no. He dawdled. He took his own, his very own time, that lazy Ah Fun. Poor Mrs. Chang, may she go to a good reward, was three days dead and in her paper coffin before Ah Fun finally arrived with the medicine that was meant to save her.

Now that is but a single instance, and a sad one, of the way in which Ah Fun was wont to dilly and to dally. Here is another illustration. Dr. Chu Ping despatched his son to the pasture land, there to find the cow and fetch her home for milking. Dr. Chu Ping knew the boy's habit, so he sent him when the sun was highest, at noon, in order that he might get the cow home before darkness came. But Ah Fun went nowhere near the pasture. He sat in the shade, playing the noisy game of "guess fingers" with a comrade in idleness. And when night came, he went to the yard of Low Moo, his next-door neighbor, and drove the Low cow into his own yard. It was so much easier than walking way down to the pasture land for his own cow.

Dr. Chu Ping had milked the cow and the cow had kicked the bucket over before Low Moo came in tears, declaring that he had been greatly wronged and that Ah Fun should be whipped with a bamboo. The other neighbors gathered round, and without exception they said: "That lazy Ah Fun; he is no good. He should be beaten." But the doctor said that Ah Fun meant no harm—he was merely too tired to go to the pasture, and that some day—(here he thumped vigorously on the bucket, rum tum tum—one always makes a noise to scare the demons, when saying complimentary things) some day Ah Fun would be a very famous man, and have a monument half a li in height, covered with much carving to tell his praise.

Then the neighbors said "Humph," and the way they said it was with the corners of their mouths turned down, sneeringly. Clearly, they disbelieved. And one said, "There was never a hyena that didn't think his own son fairer than the King's child." The good doctor laughed heartily at that. He turned to Ah Fun and said (pounding on the bucket): "Ah Fun, treasure of my miserable heart, take you the bucket, and going to the well, fetch us home some water, for there is no milk, the terrible cow having kicked it over. Hence we can have only water with our Evening Rice. And be sure, my chiefest comfort, (rum dum, went the bucket), to rinse the bucket thoroughly, twice at least."

So Ah Fun took the shui tung (the bucket), and pretended he was going to the well. But the well was a li, a third of a mile distant. The ditch was only a few steps distant. That lazy Ah Fun stopped at the ditch and filled his shui tung. He came home with a bucket half full of green ditch water. And in the water was an old shoe, a discarded shoe, a shoe that someone had thrown away as worn-out and utterly useless. Nor had the bucket been rinsed.

But Dr. Chu Ping, instead of scolding Ah Fun, scolded the excellent people of Lao Ya Shen, saying: "This town is getting very very bad. One cannot walk decently and in peace from the well to one's house, but that some scamp must toss an old shoe in the water bucket." What a deluded man was that Dr. Chu Ping.

When the spring rains were at their heaviest, Dr. Chu Ping was called from this house to that house to visit the ailing. The rains caused much sickness, and the doctor was out at all hours, no matter how foul the weather. In consequence, he was more often wet than dry, and the wetness worked against his health. One night he came home dripping water from every thread of his garments, and his teeth were chattering, upper against lower. He crawled upon the kang, which is both stove and bed, saying, as well as he could: "Ah Fun, my blessing most cherished, build a fire under the kang. Your so miserable old father has a chill that no doubt will end his wholly useless existence. Build a tremendous fire, Ah Fun, my precious jewel. Ai ya, I am cold and ill."

Ah Fun tore a few leaves of paper from a medicine book, and inserting them under the kang, struck fire to them. Then he resumed his play. After a while Dr. Chu Ping raised the quilt from his head and hoarsely whispered, "I—I—I am still shivering, Ah—Ah Fun. M—m—more w—w—wood." Ah Fun looked about, but he saw no firewood. And he was too lazy to go in search. However, the doctor's gold-crested cane stood in a corner. Well, why not? It was bamboo. It would burn. Into the kang went the cane, and right pleasantly did it crackle. But after a time Dr. Chu Ping again uncovered his head and begged weakly, "M—m—more w—w—wood, Ah—Ah Fun!" Once more Ah Fun looked round the room. There was positively no firewood in sight. However . . . upon a shelf lay half a hundred bamboo cylinders, tubes that contained medicines. In one bamboo was cuttlefish-bone. In another was ko fen (powdered oyster shell). The doctor had used that on old Mrs. Fuh Lung's rheumatism, with good effect, too. In a third were salt and 'chieh tzu. A fourth held chen pi and shih hui (orange-peel and lime). The fifth contained chang nao (camphor, and ashes) . . . all good medicines and valuable indeed.

But . . . what did Ah Fun do? He chucked the first bamboo tube into the kang, and the tube crackled as the flames bit through. Presently, he cast in the second tube. Followed the third and fourth. Tube after tube, medicines and all, went into the kang, atop which lay Dr. Chu Ping.

Now it so happened that the fiftieth tube contained huo yao—(the medicine)—and huo yao is made of sulphur, saltpetre, and charcoal—those three, the very three that combine to make Gun Powder—as we call it—nothing less.

Dr. Chu Ping lay upon the kang, all a-twitch with the chill that had worsted him. His son, Ah Fun, threw into the kang a large tube of huo yao. The fire crackled smartly, eating the tube. . . . Then. . . . "BROOOOMP."

Oh, that terrible Ah Fun. He has blown up the bed-stove. To say nothing of his honorable father.

It was raining heavily, but just the same Mrs. Low Moo came out and upbraided the doctor unmercifully for coming down in, and utterly havocking, her patch of huang ya tsai (her tender, pretty cabbages). She told him her every thought upon that subject, with such words as "Hun chang tung hsi (Stupid, blundering old thing you)." But Dr. Chu Ping merely gazed sheepishly at the destroyed cabbages, and at the hole in the room through which he had been blasted, and murmured, "Kai tan (Ah me, what a pity)."

And again came the other neighbors, the very kind people who loved Dr. Chu Ping and wished to help him in his troubles. These well-wishing neighbors came and said: "Beyond a doubt, that boy is to blame. Honorable doctor, why do you not break many stout
"Broooomp."

bamboos upon the back of that boy—that lazy, good-for-nothing Ah Fun? He will be the disgrace of, and the death of you yet." But Dr. Chu Ping rubbed his shoulder and said: "What? Beat Ah Fun? Why he is a good boy and a comfort. He just built me an excellent fire in the kang."

Then the doctor limped into his house and awoke Ah Fun, asked him what had happened. Ah Fun, though he was bad—goodness knows, terribly bad—yet was truthful. Reluctantly, we must give him credit for that. He told of all that had happened: how he placed tube after tube in the kang—being unable to discover any fire-wood—and how the last tube had exploded, hurling his father through the roof.

Dr. Chu Ping wrinkled his brow till it was all hills and hollows. He pulled his long and neatly braided hair in a highly meditative manner. He felt first his right shoulder, then his left shoulder. He rolled his eyes upward to the limit of their travel. He gazed at the hole in the roof, where still fluttered a fragment of clothing on a jagged edge. He rolled his eyes downward and scrutinized the ruined kang. He felt of his two ears that still reverberated with the enormous explosion. Then he spoke. "My son," said he, "it strikes me that we are on the verge of a great discovery. One of those medicines—though gracious knows which one—seems to be more than a medicine. It is good for something else—though dear knows what. Perhaps to grow wings, so that men may fly. It certainly enabled me to fly. We must make more medicines, and experiment."

The next day Dr. Chu Ping opened his book of instructions for the compounding of medicines—a book which he himself had written. Beginning at the very beginning—which, of course, was on the last page, good Dr. Chu studied the first formula. "Red pepper, and alum, and toad claws," so he read. The three ingredients were found and mixed in the specified proportions. The mixture was poured into a bamboo tube and the tube was placed in a fire. For an hour Dr. Chu Ping stirred the fire and fanned it into furious blazing. Nothing but much heat and much smoke resulted. There was no noise and no flying. Clearly, the combination of pepper, alum, and toad claws was quite worthless—except in the treatment of scarlet fever, for which it is intended. The doctor made a careful writing of the experiment and turned another page.

Next came oyster shell and ginseng. Worthless that, also. Shark fins and turmeric. Dr. Chu Ping marked that likewise worthless. So the experimenting continued, day after day. It took a great deal of time. The doctor was a most thorough man, as well as brilliant. One couldn't find a more thorough or brilliant in all Kiang Su, or Kiang Si, or even in Kuang Si. Methodically he tried his medicines in the fire—by one and one he tried them—and thus he came to the mixture huo yao, which, to repeat, is sulphur, and saltpetre, and charcoal, and which the Fan Kwei, or Foreign Devils, with their white faces call Gun Powder. Dr. Chu Ping placed a long tube of huo yao in the fire. He leaned over it, fanning vigorously. For a moment the tube lay on the coals, sizzling and swelling, seeming to gather its breath for a supreme effort. . . . Zzzzzzz. . . . Zeeeee. . . . BROOOOMP.

And up went Dr. Chu Ping.

Now it so chanced that a moment before the explosion, old man Low Moo was milking his cow. A moment after the explosion, he was not milking his cow. He was running for dear life in a northerly direction. His cow was running for dear life in a southerly direction. And Dr. Chu Ping sprawled upon the flattened bucket and the smashed stool, where he had fallen.

The doctor came to in five minutes. Old Mr. Low Moo came back in half an hour. The cow has never since been seen. It is doubtful if she will ever return.

No sooner did Dr. Chu Ping revive than he hobbled into the house, where Ah Fun sat calmly playing with a pan pu tao, a little toy man who has round feet, and always regains an upright position, no matter how often he is knocked over. "What happened, my father?" asked Ah Fun. Dr. Chu Ping beamed upon him. "Ah Fun, my pearl, my jade, my orange tree, it is discovered. Huo yao is the great medicine. And it is good for scaring demons.
Doctor Chu Ping beamed upon him; "Ah Fun, my pearl, my
jade, my orange tree, it is discovered."

Old man Low Moo, as everyone knows, is possessed of a demon—and he was frightened horribly. And his unkind cow, which is guided by at least four and twenty demons, has been frightened completely out of the country. There can be no doubt—huo yao is a frightener of demons. And you and I are the discoverers. Oh, my precious one, we shall be famous. A thousand thousand years from now men will still use huo yao to scare the demons."

And that was a very good prediction. Huo yao is still placed in tubes, little paper tubes, and the fuses are lighted, and "Sput," "Sput." The firecrackers explode and a thousand demons tremble and flee, reviling the names of Ah Fun and Dr. Chu Ping, who invented Gun Powder.

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