I gave a cake to a little child, but
its mother would not allow it to be eaten until she was again and again
assured and reassured that it was quite fit to eat. This home life of
the very poor Chinese, if indeed it may be called home life, has a
listlessness about it in marked contrast to that of the West. There is
little housework, no furniture more than a table and chair or two, and
the simplicity of the cooking arrangements does not tend to increase the
work of the housewife.
People here to-day are going about their work with a restful
deliberation very trying to one in a hurry. The women, with infants tied
to their backs, do not work hard but very long. A mud-house is being
built near by, and between the cooking and attending to passing
travelers, two women are digging the earth and filling up the baskets,
while the men are mixing the mud, filling in the oblong wooden trough,
and thus building the wall. At my elbow a man--old and grizzled and
dirty--is turning back roll upon roll of his wadded garments, and
ridding it of as many as he can find of the insects with which it is
infested. A slobbering, boss-eyed cretin chops wood at my side, and when
I rise to try a snap on the women and the children they hide behind the
walls.
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