One night in a vision he saw that a pestilence was about to sweep over the valley in which he lived, and his first thought was that he must save his people. He went from house to house telling the news and bidding every one flee with him to the mountains, and a few hours after he started on his mission the homes in the lowlands were deserted.
Up on the heights the people were safe in the crisp, clean air. But after many days had passed they wanted to return to their homes. They thought of the growth in the rice fields and of the approaching harvest time. “We have been here long enough,” they declared. “By this time the danger is over and we ought to go back.” But the wise Ng Chew knew it was not safe to return, and urged them to stay. There were a few who would not listen to his words. They started back to the lowlands, and Ng Chew wondered how he could keep the others on the mountain. Then a happy thought crossed his mind. He set everybody to making and flying kites, and soon had them so interested that they were glad to stay.
Days afterward, when he knew the danger was past, he led them back to the valley. Then they realized what a blessed thing he had done in keeping them on the mountain, for all who had refused to stay there with him had died of the pestilence.
The people’s hearts were filled with gratitude toward the man who had saved them.
“We will honor Ng Chew as long as he lives,” they said. “When his birthday comes we will all fly kites.”
This they did. Each year, on the birthday of Ng Chew, they left the rice fields and spent the day flying kites.
The word spread beyond the little valley and from province to province, until all over the land kite flying marked the birthday of the sage of Kwang Tung. The wise man died and centuries passed, but still the Chinese keep Kite Day, honoring him who in the long ago led his people to safety in the mountains.
Once on a time, a great many years ago, so many, many years that one grows very tired in trying to think how long ago it was; in those old days when the great Northwest consisted of a few ragged and treeless hills, full of copper and quartz, bordered by a dreary waste of sand flats, over which the Gulf of Mexico rolled its warm and turbid waters as far north as Escanaba and Eau Claire; in the days when Marquette Harbor opened out towards Baffin’s Bay, and the Northern Ocean washed the crest of Mount Washington and wrote its name upon the Pictured Rocks; when the tide of the Pacific, hemmed in by no snow-capped Sierras, came rushing through the Golden Gate between the Ozarks and the north peninsula of Michigan, and swept over Plymouth Rock and surged up against Bunker Hill; in the days when it would have been fun to study geography, for there were no capitals, nor any products, and all the towns were seaports—in fact, an immensely long time ago there lived somewhere in the northeastern part of the state of Wisconsin, not far from the city of Oconto, a little jellyfish. It was a curious little fellow, about the shape of half an apple, and the size of a pin’s head; and it floated around in the water, and ate little things, and opened and shut its umbrella pretty much as the jellyfishes do now on a sunny day off Nahant Beach when the tide is coming in. It had a great many little feelers that hung down all around like so many little snakes; so it was named Medusa, after a queer woman who lived a long while ago, when all sorts of stories were true. She wore snakes instead of hair, and used to turn people into stone images if they dared to make faces at her. So this little Medusa floated around, and opened and shut her umbrella for a good while,—a month or two, perhaps; we don’t know how long. Then one morning, down among the seaweeds, she laid a whole lot of tiny eggs, transparent as crab-apple jelly, and smaller than the dewdrop on the end of a pine leaf. That was the last thing she did; then she died, and our story henceforth concerns only one of those little eggs.