A JOURNEY IN A CART
When Nelly woke next morning she felt rather stiff, for she had never
slept on a stone kang before. Little Yi and An Ching being still asleep,
Nelly got up very gently and said her prayers. Then she thought she
would get dressed before An Ching was able to annoy her by fingering all
her clothes. How thankful Nelly felt that she could dress herself!
Bessie Bates, she thought, would not have known what to do; for Bessie
never even put on her own shoes and stockings. Nellie would have liked
her bath to-day, although she often felt that she could do very well
without it. But she knew that it was impossible to have one, and made up
her mind to dress without washing. Imagine her surprise when she found
that her clothes had been taken away from the corner of the kang where
she had left them, and a little suit of Chinese girl's things put in
their place! They were not new clothes either, although they certainly
did look fairly clean. Just then An Ching woke, and laughed when she saw
Nelly standing without anything on but the little white petticoat she
had slept in, and looking for her clothes.
'Where are they?' asked Nelly.
'Ku Nai-nai came in early this morning and took them away,' replied An
Ching. 'She wants you to put on our kind of clothes. Make haste and we
will go across the courtyard to Ku Nai-nai's room for breakfast.'
Then An Ching awoke Little Yi, who was very much amused to see Nelly
putting on her Chinese dress.
'But her hair won't do,' said Yi.
'No,' replied An Ching, 'we must see to that.'
Poor Nelly! She had to swallow very hard to keep back the tears. What
did they mean to do with her?
She soon found out, however, when they had all taken some Chinese
porridge in Ku Nai-nai's room, and wiped their faces and hands with wet
towels. Ku Nai-nai told her that she was to have her head shaved in
front and the back dressed in a tail like Little Yi's.
Nelly begged and protested and cried in vain. An Ching told her that it
was of no use to cry, and that if she made any trouble or noise she
would be whipped, but if she were good and quiet no one would be unkind
to her.
A Chinese barber arrived, and poor Nelly was obliged to submit to having
her front hair cut away and a small portion of her head shaved. Nelly's
hair was dark, though not black, like a Chinese child's. They all said
she looked very nice, and the boy grinned from ear to ear. Nelly would
have liked to slap him. The barber seemed very well satisfied with his
work and the pay he received. Ku Nai-nai threatened him with all sorts
of revenge if he breathed a word of what he had done, and told him that
if he kept quiet they would perhaps employ him to take Nelly back to
her parents.
When the barber had gone, two carts appeared in the small compound, and
out of one stepped a young, surly-looking man, who, An Ching said, was
her husband. His name was Hung Li, as Nelly soon found out by his mother
screaming all sorts of directions at him, when he began to pack the
carts. Boxes and bundles and food for the journey were put in, and the
children began to understand that they were to be taken to Yung Ching
with Hung Li, his wife and mother. However, they had been so much
comforted by learning, through the talk with the barber, that they
really were to be given back to their parents, that going to Yung Ching
at first did not seem to matter much, especially as they had no idea
where Yung Ching was. There was no putting on of cloaks and hats, the
Chinese not using these articles.
An Ching and the children were in one cart, which was driven by a
carter, while Ku Nai-nai occupied the other with her son as driver.
The cart was most uncomfortable; it looked like a large arched
travelling-trunk, covered with dark blue cotton. Open at one end, it was
placed between two heavy wooden wheels, and had a square board in front,
from which the shafts stuck out. It was on the side of this board that
the driver sat, and the others were inside under the covering, sitting
flat on the bottom of the cart, for there was no seat.
It was a fine, bright, breezy April day. As the cart jumped and jolted
over the lumpy, unpaved road, Nelly could not see outside at all, for
the carter had pulled down the curtain, with its square piece of gauze
for a window, and besides, there were such clouds of dust that when she
tried to look through the gauze she could not tell where they were.
Little Yi fixed her eye to a tiny hole she had found in the blue cotton.
She noticed that they passed the American Legation, but after that the
road was quite strange to her, as she had never been far from home.
The carters were yelling to their mules and the street hawkers were
crying their wares, but above their noise the children could hear the
humming of birds' whistles overhead. The Chinese tie whistles under
pigeons' wings, and when the birds fly they make a strange kind of
humming or whistling noise. Nelly thought they must be the pigeons that
often flew over the Legation compound, and belonged to a mandarin who
lived not far away. The birds seemed to Nelly to hover about the carts
for some time; but at last they evidently remembered that it was the
hour for them to feed, and they turned round and flew home.
About noon the travellers reached the great, high wall that stands all
round the city, and passed through the gate. When they were well on the
road outside Peking, Hung Li stopped the carts and said every one was to
get out for a time. But Nelly and Little Yi were only allowed to stretch
their limbs for about five minutes, after which they were made to get
into the cart again, and the curtain was pulled down as before. They
were given a little food, and were quite glad to be alone, as they had
not been able to speak to each other, without being overheard, since the
day before.
'Do you think your father will give money to have you back?' asked
Little Yi.
'Yes, of course. Won't yours? They won't ask him so much as mine,'
answered Nelly.
'Well, you see, I am only a girl,' said Little Yi. 'I know my father
likes me as much as my brothers, but he would be ashamed to make a fuss
over a girl.'
'Oh, what will my mother do?' cried Nelly. 'I am afraid she will think I
am dead. I would not mind so much if only I could write to her. Won't
your mother be miserable too?'
'No,' replied Little Yi. 'She has her sons, and she will know that I am
with you, but I am afraid she will scold me for going outside the gate.'
'I should not like to have a Chinese mother,' said Nelly. 'They don't
love their little girls as English ladies do.'
Just then An Ching threw back the curtain and got in. There was really
not enough room for three in the cart, and they were soon dreadfully
cramped. An Ching told the children they had better try to sleep, and
she let them put their heads on her lap. They were glad to do it, for
they were very tired. Nelly dreamed about her father and mother and Baby
Buckle. She thought she heard the baby calling her name. Indeed, she was
sure she heard him crying, even after she was sitting up awake. She was
about to rush out of the cart, which had stopped, when An Ching held
her back and told her that what she had heard was a Chinese baby in the
inn at which they had just arrived, and where they were to pass the
night.