“I have some skill in finding such spots as will bring good fortune to the children of those who are buried in them,” said he. “You have kept my gold faithfully. I wish to make you some return for your kindness, and happily it is in my power to do so. Listen! there is a place outside the East Gate of the city, so fortunate that if you were to buy it and use it for your grave, your descendants afterwards would surely prosper in the world.”
Mr So, who was no less superstitious than his neighbours, bought the ground, and when he died was buried in the lucky spot. The family prospered and in course of time one of his descendants became an official, so high in favour with the Emperor Ban-lek, that he gave him his sister to be his wife, and a ‘five-storied pavilion’ for her to live in. Mr So’s heirs continued to prosper, and some of them still live in the old home within the city. But we know that the family rose in the world, not because of the grave, which the old man thought so lucky, but through the blessing which follows upon doing what is right and honest.
Much as the Chinese praise faithfulness, the old men shake their heads and tell their children that people born in the time of the Emperor Hien-fung were more honest than those born during these last forty years, and those born earlier still, in the days of Tau-kwang, were still more faithful. It is the usual story, “the old days were better than the new,” but the very sense of failure makes the people, young and old, more ready to welcome that Saviour, who alone can help men to be faithful and upright and true and good.
CHAPTER XIII
THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN
From what you have read, you will think, perhaps, that Chinese children have a merry life, but it is not always so. Little girls, who were unwelcome to their families, used to be laid in the tiger’s track or among woods to die. Some were choked immediately they were born, or drowned in a bucket. In many cities of the Empire kind-hearted people have provided places, where such little outcast waifs are nursed and tended; for the practice of doing away with children was always against the law of the land, although the popular proverb said, “Destroy a girl and you hasten the birth of a boy.” Last year a Christian, after his conscience had been awakened, confessed that years before, while still a heathen, he had strangled a baby daughter, and put the little body into the mud of one of his rice fields.
Of late years, in many parts of China, the practice of putting girl babies to death has almost entirely ceased, partly, no doubt, because girls are scarce, and their value has risen accordingly; in some places as much as six hundred dollars being given by ordinary people for a wife.
Then there are many things which bring trouble upon children and their homes. When rain does not fall for several weeks, there is little food for boys and girls to eat. So long as rivers and wells hold out, the farmers, by working hard, can water their fields. When the streams dry up, they dig holes in the sand of the river-beds and carry the water, which collects in them, to keep the crops alive. All the family in turns tread the water-wheel, which raises water out of such holes or channels, tramp, tramp, they toil unceasingly until their skins are burnt dark brown and the bones show through. If rain still does not come, their labour is lost, the crops dry up and the poor little children as well as their fathers, and mothers have no food to eat, so that many of them die of hunger.
Sometimes there is too much rain: the rivers overflow, the grain is spoilt in the fields, pigs, goats and cows are swept away. The water rises. People climb on to the roofs of their houses, carrying clothes and the few things they hope to save from the flood. They crouch on the tiles, with their babies and little children, under the pitiless rain. Kind people, whose houses, being on higher ground, have not been deluged, go out in boats carrying food to them, for often they have had nothing to eat for several days. The flood rises still higher, in places it breaks the banks of great rivers, houses, temples, city walls and whole villages are swept away by the swift brown water, and thousands of men, women and children perish. Often, too, fires break out in crowded villages and towns. The flames spout from the windows, and showers of sparks fly into the sky when roofs fall in. If a wind happens to be blowing, a whole street of shops and houses is burnt down in no time. The people flee with their children and whatever they can save from their homes. The poor little babies and boys and girls fare badly indeed, when such trouble turns them out of doors. In parts of China, plague comes every year and carries off hundreds of people, leaving many little children with no one to care for them. In the south of the Empire, too, the people are constantly having clan-fights between families or villages; often fathers or brothers are killed, and then there are lawsuits, which ruin many a family. All these causes bring distress and suffering upon Chinese boys and girls, such as are seldom met with in Western homes. But most of the trouble which falls upon children in China to-day comes from poverty. Grinding poverty leads to hunger and starvation. Often children must work as soon as they can toddle. When they are two or three they must look after the baby brother or sister, while the mother is away working in the fields. The baby is strapped on the toddler’s back, and he or she must stagger about with it for hours, however weary the little limbs may be. Or the tiny boy or girl must go out with a small bamboo rake and fill a basket with leaves and grass to burn. In the country, quite small children must carry loads, and in the city baby workers toil at trades, till the anxieties of life have made them look old and wrinkled before they are ten years of age. One boy of ten used to work from morning till night in Chinchew city making clay furnaces. He was stunted, and his face was grey and pinched, but he helped his widowed mother to get a living. When people are very poor, two neighbours will exchange baby girls very soon after they are born, or a mother will sell her little baby girl for two or three dollars to another woman. The baby is then brought up by this foster-mother to be a little servant until old enough to many her son, and so she gets a servant, and then a wife for her son very cheap. But this custom leads to much misery and unhappiness for these ‘baby daughters-in-law,’ as they are called. They are usually treated as the family drudges and never know any childhood or parents’ care; they have to work hard, and too often live a loveless, sad life.
The saddest thing of all, is when small girls are sold to be slaves. In places where food is dear and money is scarce, fathers and mothers are driven to part with their children. In certain districts, towards the end of the year, when debts have to be paid, they may be seen carrying their little boys and girls slung in baskets to sell. A nurse in the home of a foreign lady used to tell how she had had to let eight children go in this way. Her husband was poor and when there was no food to give them, she had to sell one of the children rather than see them all starve together at home. One of the boys had been bought by a rich family in the village, so she could see him sometimes, but of course he was not her own little boy any more. When her husband died, the poor woman had to let the remaining children go, one by one, for she had no food to give them. The last little boy she gave to some strolling players for thirty dollars, to be a little actor. When asked how she could sell a child to such a terrible life as these little actor-boys lead, the mother said, “Oh, after ten years he will be too big to act, and then I shall get him back again, and he has promised to be a good boy.” The child had his yearly holiday on New Year’s Day, and his half-starved mother would save up enough cash to buy a chicken to fatten for the occasion. When her boy came home she killed the chicken, and she and he had a feast on their one happy day together.