many games, and a great deal of sweet things to eat. Jenny had sung to them, then the twins had sung two songs for all of us to enjoy—or try to, for the boys didn’t have Jenny’s soft, musical voice—then there had been more games and more to eat.
I hadn’t told Jenny that my birthday followed the twins’, but perhaps Mrs. Fraser had. The next morning Jenny appeared at the carpentry shop, smiling and carrying a parcel wrapped in brown paper and tied with a bit of plaid ribbon.
“Many happy returns, Ted,” she said. Once again she stood on tiptoe and kissed me on the cheek. My father coughed nosily behind his workbench, and I thought I heard Peter giggle. Jenny and I blushed. At least I knew she did, because I could see her face redden, and I felt sure that I, too, had turned scarlet.
“Here, this is for you,” she said, thrusting the small parcel into my hands. “I made them myself.” Then she turned to Pa and Peter and called, “Good day,” before scurrying out.
“So, a kiss for your seventeenth birthday, son? That’s a good omen. Though your Scottish lassie is a gallus young lady. Usually it’s a man who first kisses his sweetheart, not the other way around.”
What means gallus please?” Peter asked.
“It means impertinent, forward—cheeky would be a common word for it,” Pa said.
“Jenny is not cheeky, nor is she my sweetheart,” I said. “We are merely friends. Good friends.”
“Aye, so you say,” said my father. “So you keep on saying.”
Jenny’s present was a dozen thick shortbreads. They were still warm, and I popped one into my mouth. My father glared at me until I offered him one, too.
“Well, your Jenny may be gallus,” he admitted, “but this is as good as the shortbread your mother makes. Though it wouldn’t be wise to tell her so.” He reached for a second piece.
Peter went home for lunch, and when he returned, his face was serious. “This is my last day with you and your father, Ted. I can no longer work here.”
“Why?” I asked. “Has something happened?”
Pa was bent over an unfinished tabletop as he stroked a sanding block across it. He seemed intent on his work. Peter moved closer to me, and when he spoke, his voice was low.
“No, there has been no trouble, not yet. But the Frenchman is here. He went to Mosquito Creek again, but now he has come back. He talks to the Chinese who saw Ah Mow die. All the witnesses.”
“What’s Henri Tremblay saying to them?”
“I do not know, but they are afraid. More afraid than before.”
“Why?”
“I do not know,” he repeated. “They say only that Mr. Tremblay and his friends frighten them. One witness says he will leave town and not speak at the trial.”
“But he’ll have to testify if he’s asked. It’s the law.”
“If he cannot be found, then he cannot speak, can he? He will not be found, I am sure of that.”
“But what has this to do with leaving us? We need your help, Peter. Pa and I have a great deal of work to be completed, and soon we’ll begin on outside jobs. Already we have requests for new outbuildings. We need you here.”
“I am needed more in Chinatown,” Peter said.
“To do what?”
He looked over at Pa. The regular swish of the sandpaper across the tabletop hadn’t stopped. My father wasn’t listening to us.
“Some Chinese men think the Frenchman and his friends will make more trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“That also I do not know, Ted. But I find out.”
“How can you find out what Henri Tremblay and his friends are planning?”
“I am to be a spy,” he said. “That is the right word, yes? One who listens to secrets?”
“A spy?”
“Yes. My English is good. I understand what the white men talk about. Mr. Tremblay does not speak French much. His friends do not understand that language, so he talks in English. I am to work in the restaurant where they often eat and play cards. I will work there and listen to what they say to each other. I will hear what they plan.”
“It could be dangerous, Peter. Be careful.”
“I will, sir...Ted.”
“The judge will be here any day. Soon there will be a trial and this ugliness will be over. Then you can come back to us.”
“Yes. I look forward to that. Please, you will tell your father why I go?”
“Yes. I’ll explain. Good luck to you.”
“Thank you.” Peter solemnly shook my hand, bowed to my father, and strode out of the shop.
But I was wrong. The trial didn’t happen soon. By the end of May, there was still no word about when a Supreme Court judge would arrive in the Cariboo. It had been a long time since the Assizes had been held in the gold fields, many months since a judge had been sent to conduct trials here. Henri Tremblay wasn’t the only one waiting for justice.
Early in June there was an editorial in the Cariboo Sentinel:
When do the judges of the Supreme Court intend to honour Cariboo with their presence? Last year the judge arrived later and left much earlier than usual; this year it was hoped things would be altered. This is shameful neglect, even injustice. Much inconvenience is suffered by prisoners and others, but no heed has been paid and now we are in June and have still no knowledge of when the court will sit. There are three prisoners in jail awaiting trial. True, they are only Heathen Chinese and as long as they are in jail they are out of mischief. But there are also two men out on bail awaiting the pleasure of their Highnesses the Judges of the Supreme Court whose delicate constitutions might be injured by a trip to Cariboo before July.
I read the editorial aloud to my father. “Why must the paper always talk about the Chinese people as ‘heathens’?” I asked. “The Chinese were a civilized society hundreds of years ago while the British were still barbarians with blue paint on their faces. It’s an impolite term.”
“Most people truly believe the Chinese are heathens, son. They don’t go to church.”
“Not to our churches. But they worship in their own way at the Tong buildings.”
“Aye, but they don’t worship our God, which means in the eyes of good Christians they are heathens. Also, Ted, I think some people don’t believe that the Chinese are ‘real people,’ that they’re equal to us...to white people.”
“But that’s nonsense. You know Sing Kee and Peter. How can they not be ‘real’ people?”
“I agree with you, son, but it wouldn’t be wise of you
