Evening Star Newspaper, January 19, 1930, Page 97

SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. ants tell me these are Hunanese Nationalists. My servants are Hunanese. I speak Hunanese. If you will all go upstairs and promise not to shoot, I will go out and meet them and try to talk them out of killing us.” HERE was something convincing in his voice which even the sailors obeyed, although they were at their wits’ end to be attacked by armed men and fight bask with words. I walked upstairs with the others, saying to my- self: “In 5 minutes I shall be a widow.” I felt certain they would shoot him; they had shot all those others in the city who had gone out to mest them. The servants placed a bowl of tea—symbol of friendliness—in my husband’s hand, and, accompanied by them, he walked out on the terrace with his bowl of tea to meet the Huna- nese Nationals coming up the garden path through the terraced garden we had made to- gether just after we left Hunan. I sat down on the floor upstairs, saying to Mr. Green, one of our juniors: “Tell me when they kill him.” I did not seem to feel anything. I could hear my husband down below in the garden speaking Chinese. His voice came up to me, steady and strong and eloquent. The shots were fewer now, but I was so afraid some one in the house would lose his head and fire. That certainly would be the emd. I looked down—I was still holding the little American flag. In a kind of dream I listened to Mr. Green saying: “It's all right. They are smiling.” . . . “They're drinking the tea,” saild some one else who was looking out of the window. “They're going away. He's actually talked them out of it.” The relief was too t. In a kind of trance I heard a sailor saying, “Give this little girl a drink.” It was Shanon Davis, the consul's little daughter, wet with perspiration, panting for breath: “We had to run . . . all the way.” “Give this little tike a drirk, too,” said an- other one of the sailors, and there was the counsel’s liftle son. He was panting, too. I gave them water and then heard my hus- band calling me, asking where the brandy was. ‘The consul’'s wife had collapsed from her long Tun across country, up hill, down dale, under fire all the way. We all knew beyond a .shadow of a doubt that there was an organized attack on all for- eigners by the Nationalist soldiers. The con- sular party, bearing an American flag, had been fired on continuously as they made for our house. Once a Nationalist officer had given the command to fire. The day wore on. It was 11 o'clock when the men carried the consul's wife upstairs and put her on the couch in our sitting room. The children and I sat on the floor, all below the windows and the bullets of the snipers. The sailors’ arms were.brought down from the attic and hidden In a closet off the bed room, to be used in the last emergency. What was happening at the university—five miles away from us in the city? No one called on the telephone. No one answered when we called. What was happening at the British consulate? No one called. No one telephoned. All the ways to the consulate were held by Nationalist soldiers. Some of the men tried to get through but could not. We thought of such things as we sat in my sitting room, trapped in that house above the city wall, where we could look out and see the peasants, this gray March day, going about their peaceful occupations, breaking the soil in their fields, see the Noa and the Emerald far away there across the marshes. We must get out before night, I kept thinking frantically w myself. But nothing much happened those two hours except that ceaseless, fruitless tele- phoning. And our thoughts! There was a lot happen- ing in our thoughts. My mind went around like a treadmill over and over. Would they kill us? Would they torture us as in the Boxer? Would they do worse? Torture the children before our eyes? I did not let my mind touch what they might do to us as women. Before that would come the slaughter of all the men in the house. How far, from a sense of honor, would the men let them go before they asked for fire from the gunboat? Still the fruitless telephoning. I was mistress in this terrible prison house on the hill. Often I was called upon to supply / b P the wants of my guests. Guests! What a travesty of the word. Bandages for the sailor in the consular party who had been wounded in the dash from the consulate, and who, from the ground, had fired valiantly, protecting the rear of the party, thereby saving their lives. Some of the faithful native servants had man- aged to get him to our house. Cards for the consul's little daughter to play solitaire. Lunch- eon for my 52 guests. Yes! Even in the face of massacre people have to eat! SOME time between 12 and 1 Mr. Jordan and I got to the kitchen, and, with the help of the boy and the gardener and the cook, opened tins of sausage and soup laid in against a siege of thé city. And coffee. Every one felt at least a little cheered after the coffee. Pandemonium took possession of the house. Out of the front bath room window they were erecting signals. It was lower down and it would not attract so much attention. The beds A long rur across country, up hill and down dale, under fire all the way. had been stripped of their bedding to make ropes. Cups and dirty plates stood about on the tables. The house grew cold. The fires went out. We put on our coats. In every room were men walking about nervously waiting on those negotiations. There were cigarette stubs on the floors and the tables. People kept opengt ing and shu'ting doors, moving about. They could not keep still. In the corner of one room six men bent over, praying. Every now and then a shot hit the house from snipers outside. And still the fruit- less telephoning! And our minds going round like treadmills. What was happening at the university? No one called. No one answered when we called. What was happening at the British consulate? No one called. No one answered. What was happeni#g at the Presbyterian Mission? What was happening at—oh! so many places? And what was going to happen to us? To the chil- dren? Still that fruitless t2lephoning! (Cepyright, 1930.) “Prohibition and Royal Weddings” —®y #7ill Rogers ELL all I know is just what I read in the papers. We got some pretty big things been happening in the last week or so. Our Deligation to the Conference of Peace Propaganda landed O. K. and have rehearsed and are ready to open Tuesday. We sent over a mighty fine cast. It opens with great expectations, and I do hope something good comes from it. But I kinder look for the Boys to come sneaking back here one by one ex- hausted with really nothing done, unless we decide to do the sinking. Prohibition has been the small table talk here lately. People are getting so they get pretty excited in Boston and New York when there is a run.in between the Coast Guard and Gentlemen of our fastest growing Indus- try. You shoot a Bootlegger now and they take it up in Congress. You shoot the Town's Leading Citizen in an attempted Hold-up and even the local papers won’t make much of a to-do over it. That shooting up along the New England Coast, I don’t know what they thought the Coast Guard boys should have done when the boat wouldn’'t halt. Just let em go and lay it to unruliness I guess. The Commission that Mr. Hoover has out now “to see if there is any drinking going on, and if so why?” why its turning in its report now. Well, the Senate will break out again. The same oid argument will start again. How much time in the way of salary do you suppose has been wasted in Congress just on argueing on Prohibition? And you just as well argue on the tarriff. Nothing is ever going to be done about either one. ELL we are going through the siege now of looking at the pictures of the Italian wedding. Say she is a pretty stern-faced young Lady ain't she? Boy, I would hate to beat her to a parking space. She looks like she took that Queen stuff serious. Did you know that her Mother was Mon- tenegrioan? She came from a country called Monte-Negro. I looked all this up when I was over in Italy prowling around writing about them. Her Father was the king there and he had a pack of Daughters, and either he or someone was & mighty fine match- maker, for he married every one of them off to somebody who would be a King some day. He had them scattered all around those little “Balking” Nations. It got so you couldn’t hardly meet a Queen over there that wasent The Author-Comedian Has a Word or Two to Say on What He Reads in the Newspapers—=Something for the Senators to Talk About. HOFEy PRV ML TED WS ERICANS N Nfi“ A—(ofle RVB Q& T N Nog? 0 g(,\s. FEN(E? “Americans wear out the bars peeping through.” the Daughter of the King of Monte-Negro. Course this one to Italy really landed what would be called the Piece-De-Resistance of the bunch of them. Course lots of these others dident stay Queens long, but that wasent their Father's fault. He couldent be respon- sible for knowing that there was going to be a war and send pretty near all of the Kimngs' back to the bench. He was the King of a pretty poor little Country, and one time some- body asked him “what was the principal prod- uct of his Country?” He said, “Queens.” They were all very pretty and very domes- ticated. You know there is a great deal of missunderstanc:igz in regard to the standing of the Royal Family of Italy on account of the great publicity and prominence of Mussolini. It is most generally supposed that the King there is nothing. Well nothing could be further from the fact. Thats one of the smart things that Mussolini has done is to show great reverence and respect for the King and his family and their position, and say if you think the King there is not popular with the people you are away off. He is very popular, arnd don’t think Mussolini dont know that, and he always gives the King preference (unless he is really going to do something important). But no. really he does get on great with him. They claim at any big public function in most parts of Italy that the King will get a much bigger public reception than the “Duce.” He is a very small fellow, and he has always been very self-conscious about it. He on®y likes to attend functions where its on a hill, and he can be on the upper side. He did some very nice things during the war, and all the Soldiers like him very much. He really went right.up to where they were at the ircnt and helped to minister to their wants and ills. and the Queen did wonderful work then. THERE dident seem to be any of the “Hooey™ and Applesauce, about that Royal family that surrounds all those others. Course they had a.lot of it, but they are modesty Plus in comparison to all the others. That old thing of doing away with the Kings, it will never be done there if the people themselves have anything to do with it, at least not while he is alive. % You know this Mussolini is a wise Bird. He knows that, and he knows that they dont do any harm, and like the one in England and all of them, they fill a certain social place, that the men who run the Country havent time nor wouldent monkey with. Those people over there like it and we eat it up over here. We are the biggest Yaps in the World. to fall for stuff like that. Buchingham Palace has the Iron railings all wore off with the noses of Americans trying to peep through the cracks of the bars. I really think the King of Spain has more to do with the affairs of his country than anv of them. They have a Dictator, but the King put him in, and he can throw him out. But this little fellow in Italy is very popular, no more so than King George is in England, but much more so than people think, who have the impression that Mussolini is the only cne in Italy that ever got a hand. So happy life .to the young folks, they are no better or mno worse than the 1est of us. They got their troubles cut out. This Kinging is a tough job I imagine. And just think where weuld we be with our weeklies. You know Mr. Hoover don't come out and be shot with everypbody like Mr, Coolidge used to, so a Royal wedding now and then is mighty welcome. (Copyright, 1930 )