ALONE AMONG THE CHINESE
The children were glad to climb down from the cart and breathe the pure,
fresh, country air. No house was to be seen except the inn. All around
were stubbly fields, with trees in the distance. The road along which
they had come ran in front of the inn, and was almost hidden by grass.
The inn itself was surrounded by a low wall. There were several
buildings, a large one in the centre for the inn-keeper and his family,
some sleeping-rooms, and sheds for the carts and mules. Ku Nai-nai, An
Ching, and the children were shown into one of the sleeping-rooms. Then
the girls were allowed to stroll about the yard. No one took any notice
of Nelly. Ku Nai-nai explained that she was a southern child whom they
had adopted. She forbade Nelly to speak any English, and would not allow
either of the children to talk to the people of the inn. Little Yi, she
said, was her grandchild.
After supper (bowls of rice only) the women went out and sat down on the
side of the road and chattered. The children came too, and Nelly watched
the sun set. It was the first time in her life that she had ever seen it
go right down behind the earth and leave nothing but the fields in front
of them, all quite flat. She asked Ku Nai-nai if they would be up in
time to see it rise again in the morning. Ku Nai-nai told her that they
intended to start very early, and she could come out and look if An
Ching would come with her. An Ching said she would if she were not too
sleepy. An Ching had never thought of wanting to see the sun rise.
'Foreigners had such funny ideas,' she said.
When the sun had quite set they went in to bed, all four on one kang,
and slept well in spite of the fleas.
Next morning, before daybreak, Hung Li knocked at their door and asked
for their bedding, so that he could put it in the carts. Nelly
remembered the sun first thing, and as soon as she and Little Yi had put
on some of their clothes, they made An Ching come out with her hair
unbrushed. The children ran in front to the spot where they were the
night before, but saw only a grey mist.
'Why, there is no sun!' said Little Yi. 'We are too early.'
'I quite forgot that the sun never rises in the same place as it sets.
We must go round to the other side of the inn,' said Nelly.
An Ching was quite puzzled, and thought it wonderful for Nelly to know
where to look for the sun when she had never been there before.
They went round the inn and found the sun just appearing like a golden
ball. It seemed to come up very quickly, and then all around was quite
light and bright. When they went back to the inn An Ching was very
anxious for Nelly to explain all about the sun's movements, but Ku
Nai-nai said it was time to go, at which Nelly was not sorry, because
she was not sure that she remembered all there was in her geography book
about the sun.
Ku Nai-nai said that the sun did the same thing where she lived in the
country when she was a girl, and it used to set behind different trees
at different times of the year.
'When you are as old as I am, An Ching, you will know more about
things,' said she. 'You would know more now if you spent less time in
looking into the glass.'
And then they certainly would have quarrelled, if Hung Li had not
appeared and scolded them for not being ready; at which Ku Nai-nai
turned upon him and asked in a loud voice what he meant by being rude to
his parent in a public inn. As no Chinaman likes to appear disrespectful
to his mother, Hung Li said no more.
At last they were ready to start again. Nelly could scarcely climb into
the cart, so stiff and sore was she with her long cart ride of yesterday
and two nights on a stone kang with only a wadded quilt to lie upon. But
she did manage to get in, though not without shedding some tears at the
thought that she was going farther away from her parents. And somehow
the cart did not seem to bump so badly to-day, and the stiffness wore
off instead of growing worse as she had expected. She was getting used
to it.
They went along very slowly all day, and put up again that night at
another inn. This time it was a small village, and there was no open
space in front. The children were too tired even to talk. They both went
to sleep almost as soon as they arrived, and slept until rather late
the next morning, for Hung Li did not now seem to be in such great
haste to reach Yung Ching. When they woke they were quite fresh, and
Little Yi was anxious to be off once more; for An Ching said that there
was a river to cross, which she seemed to think rather exciting.
In about two hours' time they came to this river, which was after all
only a muddy stream with steep banks. There was a flat ferry-boat with
two men to manage it. These men, the carter, and Hung Li took the mules
out of the carts and made the women and children sit well back in them.
Then they slid the carts slowly down the incline and on to the boat, and
took them over, after which they fetched the mules and harnessed them
again. Then came the difficult part, to get the mules to pull the carts
up the incline at the other side, with the men pushing behind and
shouting and screaming at each other and the poor mules, enough to
deafen you. The children's cart was tilted so high that they were
looking up at their toes all the time: at least Nelly and Little Yi
were, for An Ching's toes had become claws some years ago. At last, with
a mighty pull from the sturdy mules, they got up the bank, and the other
cart was not long in following.
Two hours more and they were at Yung Ching. As they entered the town
Hung Li came and pulled down the curtain, but not before Nelly had
peeped round the opening and noticed that the roads were not black, like
those of Peking, but proper dust colour. Everything had a brownish look,
she thought, and it certainly was not a large city such as Peking.
'Here we are at last,' said An Ching, and the carts turned under an arch
and Hung Li knocked at a large door, which was opened by a middle-aged
woman, who was the only servant of the Ku family, Nelly learnt
afterwards. This woman stared very hard upon seeing the children, but Ku
Nai-nai told her in a low voice not to ask any questions while the
carter was there, and said she would tell her all about them when he was
gone, which she did, promising a portion (very small) of the reward they
were to get for the children when they were taken home.
The compound seemed clean and well kept, and Nelly thought that the Kus
ought to be far too respectable and well-off people to steal children
for money. 'But they are only heathen,' she said to herself.
Nelly and Little Yi were given a small room adjoining Ku Nai-nai's in
the centre or chief building of the compound. An Ching and her husband
had their quarters at the right, across the court. The children were
sorry that they were no longer to be with An Ching, but, as she said, it
was only at nights that they need be separated.
Nelly was the only European in Yung Ching among thousands of Chinese.
She never thought of that. Had she done so she must have felt glad that
she was shut up in a compound, away from curious eyes and fingers.