Page:Avon Fantasy Reader 17.djvu/116

RV 114 (ONE-MAN GOD) "You, a coolie, ask that?"

"My sleep is deep, my dreams are pleasant."

"Do you not thank me for this house?"

"I worship you, is not that enough?"

The god coughed. "That is very good," he said in an effort to be offhanded, for how good and necessary it was he did not want Fo Wen to know.

Fo Wen was very tired and somewhat distressed that the Scented Pine Tree God should be so persistent. He had labored hard and now in spite of himself his head slipped gently to the good earth and he slept. The god sighed and departed to those realms where only gods may go.

At sunrise, Fo Wen awakened, cooked a bowl of rice, and then departed for his back-breaking toil from dawn till dusk. Strange, he thought, that a god should build him a great house, he who was but one of the countless teaming millions of coolies of China. What did it mean? What was the reason? What need had he for so large a house now that his wife was no longer with him and he was childless?

To be childless, in China, is looked upon as a real calamity. Childless men usually take unto themselves a secondary wife, or a third until the need for progeny has been fulfilled. But not so Fo Wen. Mei Mei was his beloved wife; even death had not separated them, for she came to him in his dreams. He needed no other women, wanted no other woman, even as Emperor Ming Huang had eyes for no other woman after beholding Yang Kwei-fei.

Fo Wen was well educated though he had never attended school. His father had taught him to read and write. The beauty of his brush strokes might have brought envy to an artist. Nature, too, had been his teacher. From the wind in the willows he learned sweet songs which he longed to translate into words; from the sky at evening he drew inspiration and serenity; from the glory of scented pine trees he drew faith. So it was but natural he worshipped their god. That the god was all but bankrupt as far as worshippers were concerned, he did not know.

In the early evening, Fo Wen returned to the garden which was surrounded by the various rooms of the magnificent house. He was deeply troubled as he walked through the carved red gates, past the spirit screen, and on toward his crude hut that remained an incongruous blot on the beauty of the garden. He prepared his usual bowl of rice over a wood fire. He ate slowly, trying to fathom the mystery of the god's benevolence. Of what need had he for a palace? He was a coolie, had always been a coolie, and a coolie he would remain until his life ceased.

Had he been endowed with this great house while his wife, Mei Mei, had walked the earth, he would have been ten thousand times thankful for the blessing. It would have meant jewels and silken robes for her. Now, since she had joined her ancestors except during those glorious hours of sleep when she returned to him, wealth meant nothing to him.

As a majestic form stood beside him, he looked up to behold the disgruntled God of Scented Pine Trees.