'She is quite right,' said Chang Nai-nai.
'Then,' said Chang, 'you must come up and talk to her.'
Now Chang Nai-nai had never mounted a ladder, and she was rather afraid to do it, but she thought she would like to see into the next compound, and resolved to try.
Chang came down, and she cautiously went up a few rungs, but stopped and asked Chang to follow her, as she felt rather nervous. When Chang had reassured her, she ventured to go two rungs higher, gave a great sigh, and exclaimed, 'You are not following me!'
Chang told that he could not very well do so until she was higher still.
Chang Nai-nai, who was very determined and not lacking in courage, resolutely went up a little higher. She was now more than half way to the top, and there she stuck, seized by a sudden terror. She looked very funny, clinging with both hands to the ladder, and her little claw-like feet close together on one of the rungs. Chang could not help smiling, which greatly annoyed the poor woman, and she at once began a tirade against the foolishness of An Ching. Why could she not talk with a grey-headed old man (Chang had about six grey hairs) who might have been a grandfather had their little baby girl lived and been married at sixteen, as she herself was? 'I won't have anything to do with helping the children to get home to their parents, no matter what the reward may be, if I am obliged to climb ladders and talk with ridiculous young women,' she went on.
'Come down, then,' said Chang.
But this was more than could be expected of her. As we all know from experience, especially girls who have got so far as climbing into a hay-loft, it is very much easier to go up a ladder than to come down. Chang Nai-nai might have remained where she was until she dropped off, had not Chang mounted after her and almost carried her down.
When the little woman was safely deposited on the ground, she became less irate against An Ching.