Summary: Every year, on the night before Christmas Eve, Hop Sing would make candles.  Now, candles are kind of old fashioned, so I asked him why.  This is the tale he told me, a tale of wonder and grace.
Written for day 9 of the 2021 Advent Calendar.
Rating: G
Word Count: 3915

Bonanza
~*~*~ Advent Calendar ~*~*~
* Day 9*

Be a Candle

ONE

Joe Cartwright woke to the scent of honey.

He sat up in his bed and breathed it in before slipping his feet into his slippers, pulling on a robe, and heading downstairs.  It was Christmas Eve Day and his father and brothers were still asleep.  A storm had moved in on the 21^st and it hadn’t stopped snowing since.  Yesterday, the four of them had been hip-deep in the white fluffy stuff, tending their stock and making sure the animals had roofs over their heads that wouldn’t collapse.  They were all exhausted and Pa said it was okay to sleep in as late as they wanted today.

All the better, Joe thought.  There wouldn’t be any ribbing this year.

When he reached the bottom of the steps, the handsome young man paused and sniffed.  Yep, honey.  Or more exactly, beeswax.

Hop Sing was at it again.

Joe ran a hand through his tousled curls, attempting to bring some order to them.  A tongue lashing first thing in the morning wasn’t something he wanted or needed.  Hop Sing and his pa had their differences, but when it came to what his father called ‘decorum’, the two men sang from the same hymn book.

The heavenly scent grew stronger as he approached the kitchen, causing his stomach to growl in anticipation of the thick slice of bread heaped with butter and honey he knew was waiting for him.  Hop Sing didn’t exactly call him the ‘runt of the litter’, but he knew that was how the Asian man saw him.  Hoss and Adam were early risers and big eaters.  Often, by the time he made it to the kitchen, the fresh bread was gone.  He didn’t remember it, but Hop Sing said – when he was really little – that his lower lip would quiver and tears would come into his eyes as he stared at the empty platter.  It happened so often that Hoppy, as he called him then, began to put back a thick substantial slice every morning so he never went hungry.

Joe halted at the edge of the kitchen and peered around the hearth wall.  Hop Sing was where he expected him to be – on a stool in front of the hearth, leaning over a kettle of wax.  It was the same every year.  Every December 23^rd the Asian man would dust off his wooden candle reel and place it before the fire.  The reel consisted of a center pole, a round top, half a dozen wooden ‘arms’, and six round dippers or paddles with hooks that held the wicks.  Over the course of the following day, while he waited on things to cook, he would make two or three dozen candles.

Candles of course, were kind of old-fashioned.  They lit their house with oil lamps.  Joe chuckled from his place in the shadows.  He was six, or maybe seven, before he found the courage to tell Hop Sing he was wasting his time.  The Asian man threw his hands in the air, declared what he said to be ‘foolishment!’, and then ordered him to pick up a heavy wicker basket laden with dozens of candles and follow him.  Together, they placed a single taper in each and every window on the ranch – the barn and bunkhouse included!  At midnight he got his second set of marching orders.  This time he had to carry an oil lamp so Hop Sing could light the wicks.

That was when it started.  Their tradition.

Since that day, every Christmas Eve he would rise early and come to the kitchen.  If he was lucky he’d beat his brothers out of bed, but no matter what, his slice of honey bread would be waiting for him and so would Hop Sing.  He’d pull up a chair and sit and eat while the Asian man worked his magic.  Hop Sing’s candles were a work of art – each one tall and straight as a Ponderosa pine.  Joe snorted as he stepped into the light where the Asian man could see him.  It took him another two years growth to become bold enough to ask Hop Sing why he made the candles.

That was the second part of their Christmas tradition.  He’d heard the story a dozen times.

He was ready to hear it again.

“Bread and honey on table for little boy,” the Asian man said without looking up.  “Boy sit down and eat, and then take turn at reel.”

Yep, along the way he’d been recruited.  As Hop Sing grew older, the labor-intensive chore hurt his back and took too much of the time he needed to cook.  When he was fifteen, the Asian man gave up his seat and let him make candles too.  At first it was hard work, but then he began to enjoy it. There was something soothing about the up and down, in and out movement of dipping the wicks and placing the paddles back on the reel; the crack and pop of the fire at his back, the scent of the beeswax, and the creaking of the reel.

It was almost other-worldly.

While he worked, Hop Sing would make a pot of his special tea.  Since he was from China, it took a while.  Once done with the ritual, the Asian man would bring the tea to the table, pour them both a cup, and then sit down.  Sometimes it took a minute, other times it might be ten, but eventually he would begin to talk.  Every year it was the same story.

The story of a day when he should have died but didn’t, because God sent an angel to save him.

An angel who made candles.

TWO

Bitter was the wind.  So bitter, the heavily padded coat he wore was useless, as were his cotton pants and cobbled leather shoes.  He had seen snow before, but there had been nothing like this back home in China.  The man he bought his horse from assured him he would make it to his destination before the winter storms arrived, but he had lied and now his horse was dead.

Soon, he would be too.

Hop Sing, son of Hop Ling – who waited for him in the Utah Territory along with his mother, brothers and sisters – pulled the collar of his pearl-gray coat closer about his throat. The world was a blank sheet with nothing written upon it.  All was white: grass, trees, and sky.  He did not know where he was, but he knew where he was soon to be.

Facing the ten magistrates of Hell.

The young man shuddered.  If he had been home, where the local gods knew him, he might have had a chance.  The record of his deeds would have shown him to be a good man.  He was not from this place.  If he died here, the god of the mountain would know nothing of him and he would not be able to prove he was not an evil man.  There would be no escaping the Underworld, and he would spend eternity in that terrible place, away from all he loved.

When his horse fell and did not rise, he had fallen as well to his knees and asked the shen for guidance.  Perhaps he was too far away and they did not hear him.  Maybe it was that the spirits had forgotten him.  Years had passed since he last visited the shrine of his ancestors.  Either way, they did not answer.  He was alone, without guidance or hope.

He was going to die,

He did not want to die.

Hop Sing closed his eyes and drew in a halting breath.  The cold choked him and he coughed before starting forward again.  The snow was very deep and each step an effort.  He continued forward as the page it was written upon went from white to gray, to purple, and finally to a black field without stars.  He walked until he could not feel his face or feet or fingers, until his mind grew cold as stone and his blood thick as ice.  While he walked his cracked lips moved, calling first to the shen – the spirits of those who had gone before – and then pleading with any god who would listen.

He asked to be saved.

His wise father told him when young that to ask the shen for aid called for silence.  This he did not understand until he was much older.  How could one ask and be silent?  Hop Ling said men seek the shen in the whirlwind and fire, in shouts and clamor and in the midst of battle, but this is not where the shen dwell.

The young man stopped.  Here, the silence was profound.

Surely the gods would hear him.

It was at that moment that he saw it – a single, solitary light in the distance.  Hop Sing blinked his eyes to make certain it was real.  The light did not go away but grew in strength until it shone as a beacon and buoyed his weary spirit.  He moved forward along a cleared path only partially reclaimed by a fresh fall of snow.  It led to a tidy structure perched atop a rocky knoll – a rough-hewn cabin, sturdy; built of split logs.  Smoke rose from its cat and clay chimney, and from its stone underbelly came the cries of sheep and goats.

The young man’s shaking legs took him to its door, but he lacked the strength to knock.  Spent, he slid to the snow-covered stoop and laid there, assured of his death.

His wise father told him another thing.  The shen were capricious.  They answered a man’s prayers, but not always in the way he desired.

A rueful smile formed on his frigid lips.

This, perhaps, was their idea of delivery.

THREE

Hop Sing woke to the scent of honey.

It stirred in him a memory of servitude and he knew he must rise and begin the new day – but found he could not.  His arms and legs were heavy as hearthstones, and his fingers and toes burned like the fire that heated them.  Suddenly aware of pain, he cried out.

“Take it easy, child,” someone said.  “There’s a wonder it’s me and not Saint Peter you’re addressin’.”

It was a woman who spoke, her voice ancient and thin as rice paper.  Hop Sing turned his head to look at her, but his eyes burned as well.  Tears filled them and he could not see.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!,” the woman exclaimed as she came toward him.  “You’re a funny one.  Haven’t you ever near-froze to death before?”

He replied, but there was no reply.  His lips brought forth only wind.

“Now, now.  That’s a question that doesn’t need answerin’,” she said as she sat down beside him and pulled the coverlet up to this his chin.  “You just lie still.  Time will tell us whether or not you’re going to lose those toes.”  When he started with fear, she altered her tone.  “Now, don’t you worry.  I wrapped some hot stones to press up against them. They’ll be warm soon enough.”

“….thank…you.”

The woman was a blur, but he thought she lifted her hand to strike away a tear.  “Well now, I couldn’t have you clutterin’ up my stoop all winter long, could I?”

“This…humble one….”  He winced.  His throat was on fire as well.  Determined, Hop Sing cleared it and continued.  “This humble one….must beg forgiveness.”

“Whatever for?”

“I come uninvited.”

“Well, now, there you have it.  There’s no one wrong more often than a man!”  She laughed as her warm hand touched his cold cheek.  “You were invited.  All are invited to the good Lord’s table.  Why do you think I leave the candle burnin’?”

“It is not…fitting…for you to care for me,” he said and tried to rise.  The pain was overwhelming.  A blackness, deeper than the one he had experienced on the mountain sought to take him.

“Hush, child,” the woman said as she held a cup of steaming liquid to his lips.  “Drink deep.  Sleep.  When you wake, the pain will be gone.”

He knew the scent, and the herbs.  He too used them to quiet fear and apprehension.

“Thank you,” he said.

The cup was withdrawn.  Her hand returned.

“No,” she whispered, “thank you.”

FOUR

The scent of honey was stronger and so was he.  This time when Hop Sing opened his eyes, he was able to sit up and swing his legs over the edge of the bed.  He was dressed in unfamiliar clothing that was two sizes too large, but the well-worn fall-front janes and blue-check flannel shirt were both warm and welcome.  The young man’s cheeks reddened when he spotted his own thin coat, shirt, and pants hung over a ladder-back chair near the fire.

This visible sign of the old woman’s care for him deepened his humility.

She sat beside the fire and hummed as she turned a candle reel.  The old woman’s cheeks were red as the fire.  She huffed a bit as she repeated the motion of removing a dipper from the arm, plunging the thickened wicks into the wax, and then returning the round paddle to the reel before moving on to the next one.  Hop Sing watched spellbound as she did this.  The repetitive motion soothed his troubled spirit, as did the song she sang.

‘Full many a bird did wake and fly,

To the manger bed with a wandering cry,

On Christmas day in the morning.

Curoo curoo curoo, curoo curoo curoo

The lark the dove and the red bird came,

Curoo curoo curoo.

The lark the dove and the red bird came,

And they did sing in sweet Jesus’ name,

On Christmas day in the morning.

Curoo curoo curoo. curoo curoo curoo.’

A few minutes later, the woman paused.  She straightened up and placed a hand against her back.

It was then she noticed him.

Hop Sing did not know what to expect as she faced him.  He had met many white women since coming to America.  Some feared him for the color of his skin.  They called him ‘*****’ and ‘coolie’ and struck him if he met their gaze.  Others were indifferent.  They met his with nothing in their own and acted as if he was not there.

This white woman looked him in the eyes and smiled.

“Well, there it is!” she declared.

Hop Sing glanced behind and frowned.  “There…what is?” he asked as he turned back.

The woman stood and wiped her hands on her apron.  “Why, the answer to my prayer, child. Just look at you, standin’ on those toes that only last night I thought for sure were goin’ to the good Lord before the rest of you!”

‘The good Lord.’

She had used this phrase before.  He was not certain, but he thought the good ’lord’ she spoke was the baby Jesus of her song; one of the shen the white people worshipped.  Hop Sing shook his head.  He did not think this white shen would want anything to do with any part of him!

“This one thanks you for saving his life,” he said softly.  “He is in your debt.”

The woman was running the back of her hand across her forehead, wiping away the sweat of hard work.  She paused in mid-motion.  “You owe me nothin’, child.  Tis the good Lord Himself what rescued you.”

He saw now that she was younger than he had thought.  Though the Irish woman’s hair was white, there were streaks of dark blond running through it.  Her face was lined from both years and the sun, but it still held a hint of its former beauty.  Hop Sing wondered what had aged her before her time.  If she lived alone in this place, as he suspected, that would explain it.  Her children had gone.  Her husband was dead and she had stayed behind to tend the place they loved.

“Cat got your tongue?” she asked.

“You will please to pardon this one’s confusion.  I see no…good lord…only you.  How is it he who has aided me?”

The woman held his gaze a moment and then thrust out one callused hand. “First of all, introductions.  I’ll not be addressin’ you as ‘honored one’, though it’s a nice enough title.  My name’s Maggie.”

He wobbled a bit as he bowed.  “This humble one is called Hop Sing.”

“Pull up a chair, Hop Sing, and sit down.  You’re weak as a newborn!”  Maggie removed her soiled apron and tossed it over the back of a chair.  “We’ll have some bread with honey.  That’ll give you stomach for more.”  She beamed.  “The honey’s from the bees in the meadow over the mountain.  Tis like no other!”

He waited until she had returned with the items to ask, “Does the wax you use come from the same bees?”

“Aye, child.  That wax makes candles so straight they point to Heaven, as you discovered for yourself last night.”  Maggie took a seat.  She arranged her napkin on her lap and then bowed her head.  He had seen this done before in the white men’s houses where he worked.  He did the same.  “Thank you, Father, for the gifts you give,” she began, “for light and life and laughter, and for lighting the way for this weary traveler.”  The Irish woman lifted her hand and made a sign; the same one he had seen the clergyman who had given him the wooden cross make.  “In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.  Amen.”

After they had finished and he had thanked her for the food, Hop Sing asked the question that had come to mind as she finished her prayer.  “Are these your shen?  This father, son, and holy ghost?”

Maggie was dabbing at her lips.  She looked over the napkin at him.  “My ‘shen’?”

“The…spirits who guide you.”

She laughed.  “In a way, I suppose.”

“Do they…listen to you?”

“Aye.  Do your…shen…listen to you?”

He frowned.  “I do not know.  I am here.  Perhaps it is they who guided me.”

“Ah, no, lad,” Maggie said, her voice suddenly solemn.  “That was my shen.”

She rose and crossed to the window.  There was a fresh candle there, burning as brightly as the one that had guided him to her home.  Hop Sing’s gaze went to the window sill.  It was covered in wax, as if a candle had burned there from the beginning of time.  He noted a low wooden able beside it.  On the table was an ironstone pitcher and a loaf of bread, along with two plates and a knife.

“Do you know why I keep the candle lit, child?” she asked.

It would do nothing to illuminate her home.  In fact, he had noticed light was provided by a pair of oil lamps; the oil no doubt supplied by traders who passed through in the warmer months.

“To light the way of travelers,” he replied.

The Irish woman’s fingers brushed the cross that hung around her neck; the one with a man’s body hanging on it.  He had noted it the night before when she bent over him to pull up the coverlet.

“Aye.  Two particular travelers,” she said, and then quoted, “And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed, and all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.  And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.”  Maggie smiled.  “ I set out the Christ candle every night to light the way for Mary and Joseph, and for all weary travelers.  The food on the table is so all have strength to continue.”

He knew of this Mary and Joseph.  This time of year he would hear the story read in the houses where he worked.

“Do you know how old Mary and Joseph were, Hop Sing, when they set out for Bethlehem?” the older woman asked.  “They were barely more than babes and yet, they trusted in God.  Their journey was long – impossible, you might say – but they knew He’d see them through because God had a reason and a purpose for their lives.”  Maggie returned to the stool before the fire.  She sat down and reached for a paddle.  “I have a feelin’ you’re on such a journey, Hop Sing, and I know God has a reason and a purpose for your life, else he wouldn’t have dropped you half-frozen on my stoop.”  She turned toward the fire and began to dip again.  “If you like a good story, there’s a book over by the bed.  You might try turnin’ to the chapter that’s written by a man named Luke.  Now, be a good lad and keep quiet while I finish my song.”

FIVE

Joe hummed the tune to himself while Hop Sing put the finishing touches to the candles.  It was known to him as the ‘Carol of the Birds’.  The song spoke of nature’s worship for God’s only son, the baby Jesus.  Hop Sing’s story always ended when he picked up Maggie’s Bible.  He’d pressed the Asian man over the years and gotten a few more details.  The Irish woman finished her candles.  They ate supper together and this time, when she prayed to her shen, Hop Sing felt a stirring in his heart to learn more about the white men’s God – these three shen who were one.

When he woke up in the morning, she was gone.

Where she went, he never knew.  At first he feared she’d gone outside to gather wood or to tend the animals and become lost.  Hop Sing looked and looked, but found no trace and so, in time – when the snow stopped and at last a warm day came – he left the cabin, taking nothing with him that he had not brought.

With the exception of the Irish woman’s Bible – and that stirring in his heart.

Hop Sing kept a Chinese shrine in the kitchen, but he also called himself a ‘good Baptist’.  It seemed both the shen of his childhood and the three-in-one he had met on that mountain had come to the Ponderosa with him.  His ways were simple and his needs few.  The Asian man celebrated Christmas by making them merry, and most of the time was more of a shadow than anything else.  Joe had noted, though, how their cook and friend always appeared just as Pa sat down to read the story written by that feller named Luke telling how the true Light had come into the world.

Joe turned toward Hop Sing when he called his name.  “Little Joe remember what wise father say?” the older man asked.

Yeah, he remembered.

‘There are two ways to spread the light – be a candle, or be the one to reflect its light.’

Joe placed a hand on the Asian man’s shoulder and smiled as he remembered what his own ‘wise’ father had told him just the night before.

There was no one who could hold a candle to Hop Sing!

END

Character: Hop Sing

Prompt: Making candles

Link to Day 10 of the Bonanza Brand 2021 Advent Calendar:  Bottom Line by Cheaux