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THE BOY WHO WANTED THE IMPOSSIBLE
Mary Hayes Davis and Chow-Leung
Tsing-Ching (Pure Gold) was
four years old when his parents
sent him to a ”baby school’*
for the first time and told him
that the teacher could tell him
everything he would like to
know.
When he saw a queer bird
flying around he asked his
teacher, “What kind of a thing
is that in the air?” His teacher
told him, “A bird,” and that to
be a bird meant to fly around
and sing in every place, and
make music for the people.
The boy said, “Can I not do it?” His teacher
said, “Yes, you can sing music for the people, but
you can not fly unless you get wings.”
Tsing-Ching replied, “Yes, I can do that, too.”
Just then the servant girl, that his mother had
sent, came to fetch him home from school.
When they reached the park by his home, Tsing-
Ching said, “Tau-Mai, I want that long ladder and
a long stick.” The nurse-girl did not know what he
would do with them, but she finally had to give him
both to keep him from crying. She was afraid his
mother would hear him cry, and that she would come
out and scold her for not taking better care of the child.
As he took the long ladder he said, “Now I am
going to be a bird.” His nurse said, ”You can not
be a bird, Tsing-Ching. Birds fly. You can not fly.
Why are you trying to climb up the ladder? That
is not the way to be a bird.”
Lau-Mai helped him up two or three steps, when
his mother called her to come in, and she left him
there for a little time.
He climbed up, up, nine steps by himself — and
fell down. But he was not hurt, nor did he cry;
he had no fear — he thought of but one thing — he was
going to be a bird.
Suddenly his mother came and saw him again
trying to climb up the ladder and asked, “What are
you doing, Tsing-Ching?”
He answered, “I want to be a bird; wait, I will try
again. I know that birds fly in the air, not on the
ground. I can not fly on earth. If I get up high in
the air, then I know I can fly.”
His mother thought he wanted to climb up and
get a bird; she looked all around and said, “There is
no bird up there now.”
“But, Ah-Ma, I want to be a bird.”
The servant, Lau-Mai, came just then and ex-
plained to his mother. His mother said he was a
foolish boy, and gave him food and sent him to
school again.
In two hours the teacher sent all the boys out to
play. They ran to the pond where the gold-fish
were, for they liked to watch them swim in the water.
After exercise, they all went into the schoolroom
and Tsing-Ching told his teacher, “I saw many
gold-fish swimming in the pond. Did you know
that, teacher? A man fed them rice and they all
came out for him. They seemed so happy; they
shook their tails and waved their fins and swam up
and down and all around in the cool water. Oh, I
should like to be a fish.”
His teacher said, “Learn lessons now.” But Tsing-
Ching could not study; he could only think, think
about the fish.
Soon he asked that he might go out to drink. Then
he went to the pond and took off
his clothes, but the gardener saw
him and asked, “What are you
doing, boy? This is school-time.”
“I want to be a fish,” said
Tsing-Ching.
The gardener thought he
wanted to catch the fish and
said, “The fish are for your eyes
and not for your hands. Do not
disturb them.”
Tsing-Ching sat down and
waited until the gardener went
away. Then he stepped into the
water and talked to the fish,
“I am going to be one of you now,” he said.
“Come to me and show me how to swim with you.”
But they all hurried away.
For half an hour he splashed in the shallow water,
trying to swim, until the teacher thought, “Where
is Tsing-Ching?” and sent a boy to see. He found
him in the pond and asked him to come into the
schoolroom, saying the teacher would punish him if
he did not.
“No” said Tsing-Ching, “I shall be a fish; I told
the teacher I was going to be a fish.” And so the
boy went back and told the teacher, who hardly knew
what to think.
Finally he went out with a stick and asked, “Tsing-
Ching, what are you doing here? Do you know
this is school time? Do you know that you were
allowed only to go out for a drink and not to stay
here and play? You have done wrong.”
“Why, teacher, I told you that I wanted to be a
fish,” said Tsing-Ching. “I do not want books or
exercises. I am going to be a fish and I will not go
to school. Mother said you teach everything; now
teach me to be a fish.”
His teacher said, “How foolish you are, Tsing-Ching;
you are a boy, a man. You can learn many things
better than to be a fish. Come with me now.”
That night when Tsing-Ching
was walking with his mother
and nurse out by the water, he
saw the summer moon shining in
the lake.
“How strange, Ah-Ma, the
moon is under the lake! See, it
raises the lake and shakes it all
the time. I want it. What kind
of a white ball is it?”
Then his mother told him that
the moon was in the sky, not in
the lake, and she explained and
showed him. And when he saw
the moon in the sky, he said, “I know that it is not
the moon in the lake, for it shakes. It is not quiet
like that one in the sky. It is a silver ball, I know.”
He asked so many questions that his mother grew
tired of answering and let him ask unnoticed.
Then he wandered away a little distance and threw
stones in the water. And the waters waved and the
white ball danced so prettily that he wanted it very
much. He waded into the lake, deeper, deeper, until
he fell down. He screamed and swallowed the water,
and it took a long time to make him alive again,
after his mother took him out of the lake.
When the neighbors heard about it, they said,
“Toolish boy, not satisfied to do the things he can —
he is always wanting things he can not have.”
Many people in this world are like Tsing-Ching.
