round the Ling courtyards were coming to life.
In one of the inner courts two children, a boy named Ah Shung, and his sister, Yu Lang, stood before a door that opened upon a covered veranda under a curving roof of gray tiles.
"We are here, bowing before you, Grandmother," the boy said as he rapped on the wooden door frame.
"Are you well, Lao Lao?" asked the girl who was standing just behind him.
"Ai, Little Bear. Ai, my precious Jade Flower, it is you. Have you eaten already?" a voice called from within.
The two children bowed low as the old woman came to the door and stood there for a moment looking them over. Ah Shung and Yu Lang admired their grandmother. She was the oldest and thus the most important person they knew. In their land, where age was treated with such great respect, everyone wished to be thought as old as possible. The name their grandmother liked best to be called was "Lao Lao," which means "Old Old One."
In her elegant garments of dark silk lined with soft squirrel fur this old Chinese grandmother made a fine figure. She was not very tall, but from the tip of her carefully combed gray hair to the tiny points of her wee satin shoes she seemed to the children the very picture of a great lady.
Lao Lao was wearing a short coat, all of plum color with a beautiful pattern of flowers woven in its silk threads. Her long blue skirt almost covered the loose fur-lined silk pantaloons which she had on underneath. Her embroidered satin shoes, which could just be seen below her heavy silk skirt, were not more than four or five inches long, for her feet had been squeezed into tight stiff bindings after the old Chinese fashion. A gold pin was thrust through the coil of gray hair that lay flat against her neck, carved pieces of precious green jade-stone hung from her ears, and gold bracelets and rings adorned her hands and her wrists.
As she looked at her grandchildren the old woman's slanting eyes sparkled with pleasure. Her strong, kindly face lighted up as she asked them about the breakfast they had just eaten in the family hall.
Ah Shung and Yu Lang were handsome Chinese children. Their skin was creamy yellow and their black eyes were set aslant above their high cheekbones. They were well dressed, as was proper for children of the wealthy Ling family. Both wore their black hair long, in neat braids down their backs. These children lived many years ago, before new ways came to the Flowery Kingdom of China. In those old days all Chinese men and boys, as well as young girls, wore their hair in such long braids or queues. Ah Shung's forehead was shaved high and smooth, while his sister's brow was hidden by a straight fringe of hair cut square above her slanting black eyes. Near its end the little girl's shining black braid was wound neatly for several inches with some bright scarlet thread.
The coming of winter had brought with it the "Small Cold," as the Chinese sometimes call the first chilly days. About the doors and the windows, cracks in the houses had been sealed up with paper to keep out the cold winds. Fires were burning under the brick beds and in little brass or iron stoves set out in the rooms. But these did not give nearly enough warmth, so everyone had put on several suits of thick clothing.
Both Ah Shung and Yu Lang had on short jackets and long trousers of thick wadded cotton. The little girl's pantaloons hung loose about her tiny feet, while her brother's were wrapped tightly about his ankles, just above his shoes of dark cloth. Over his padded suits Ah Shung had on a long gown of heavy blue cloth, and on top of this a short jacket of black. Yu Lang's outer garments were of padded silk of gay colors. Her pantaloons were leaf green and her jacket bright blue. Like her grandmother's, the little girl's feet were tightly bound up so as to make them seem small.
"Call Fu," the old woman said to her maid, Huang Ying, who was helping her down the two stone steps that led out into the courtyard. "I am ready to look to the household. Ah Shung and Yu Lang may walk beside us as we go."
"Fu is here, Aged and Honorable Lady," said a soft voice at her side. A tall man stood before her, bowing respectfully, his hands at his sides. It was Fu, the number one servant, who had charge of all the men and women who tended the wants of this family of Ling. Each of the other servants looked up to Fu because he knew how to read and even to write a little. The only one who thought herself more important than Fu was old Wang Lai, the number one nurse. She had cared for the father of Ah Shung and Yu Lang when he was a child, and she always let people know that she had served the Ling family even longer than Fu.
Inside the bright red gate Grandmother Ling ruled like an empress. Every few days, leaning heavily upon the arm of one of her maids, she would toddle on her bound feet through the courtyards which lay one behind the other inside the high gray walls. She looked into every corner, for, as she used to say to the children, "When the mistress shuts her eye, the maids fall asleep."
At the red gate the Old Mistress, as the servants called her, stopped to chat with Chang, the gatekeeper. They stood out of the wind, behind a tall screen made of bricks which faced the red gate and sheltered the entrance court from the curious gazes of passers-by. Ah Shung and Yu Lang ran around to the street side of the screen. They wanted to look at the painted green dragon that twisted and turned across its broad face. The huge beast seemed to be trying to catch in his claws a round scarlet ball which their grandmother told them was meant to be a flaming pearl.
"That wall keeps off the bad spirits that fly about us through the air," Ah Shung explained for the thousandth time to his sister. "The Old Old One says the spirits that ride on the wind have to go straight. They cannot turn corners. So when bad spirits fly in through the red gate, they meet this strong screen. They must go back. And the sight of our good dragon sends them flying out faster than they came in."
Grandmother Ling and many other Chinese believed in spirits, both good and bad. They took greatest care to protect themselves from them. To be doubly safe, this family had set up a second spirit screen inside the round Moon Gate that led from the entrance yard to the courtyard beyond it.
The Old Mistress inspected the entrance court carefully. She looked at the houses on each side of the red gate where Chang and some of the other men servants lived. She peered into the near-by courts where the horses and traveling carts were kept and where several little two-wheeled carriages called "jinrikishas" were lined up, waiting until the men of the family should wish to go out. She talked with the sturdy riksha men, each of whom trotted as fast as a horse between the shafts of his small carriage when he pulled it along smoothly over the streets of the city.
Ah Shung and Yu Lang followed their grandmother through the Moon Gate, the round opening cut in the lower white wall that separated the entrance court from the courtyard beyond. They made their way around the white spirit screen there and then crossed the paved courtyard. Bits of green grass were growing up between the gray paving bricks, and huge china flowerpots, filled with dwarf evergreens, lined the way to the steps of the gray one-story houses that were built with verandas upon the open square.
The children admired especially the low brick building that faced the Moon Gate. This was the hall where important guests were received. Its roof of gray tiles was more gracefully curved at the corners and its latticework windows, backed with white paper to let in the light, were more beautifully made than those of any of the other houses inside the red gate. Little wind bells that hung under its eaves tinkled in the strong breeze. The smaller houses on either side of this courtyard served as library and study for the men of the family. Ah Shung and Yu Lang always behaved particularly well when they were called to meet visitors in this Courtyard of Politeness.
The two children felt more at home in the second courtyard beyond the entrance court. This was the first of the family courts. In its central building was the hall where everyone gathered for meals and where close friends were received. Here Grandmother Ling had her own apartment, and on one side were the rooms of some of the older children of the family. A house on the left in this courtyard was given over to the
