As for the father, he walks about as proud as a turkey-cock, although according to Chinese etiquette he assumes an air of indifference as though nothing special had happened, whilst all the time under those stolid features that are as undemonstrative as a tombstone, a world of passion and joyous feeling and romantic thoughts are playing their sweet music around his heart.
And now, congratulations pour in from every quarter upon this most happy event of the arrival of a son. It would indeed for the moment appear as though such a thing had not happened for years, and that the coming of a baby boy was something so rare as to transport the family and all the numerous relatives, and even the nearest neighbours, with such feelings of gladness, that these could only be expressed by the most exaggerated expressions of joy at the wonderful event.
The little mite is but a speck in the great ocean of babyhood that fills this land with its swarms of children, and yet, happily for it, it is welcomed as though it were the only one in the Empire, and faces are wreathed in smiles, and the choicest phrases are culled out of the language of poetry, and minds are set to work to invent new phrases by which to express the gladness of soul that men feel at the coming of the little one into the world.
Let us peep for a moment into the home; it is a middle-class one, and presents the usual untidy, slovenly and unswept appearance that is characteristic of every such one in the country. But to-day an air of peculiar happiness seems to pervade the house that makes one forget the dust, and the litter, and the atmosphere of discomfort that makes a foreigner feel as though he dare not sit down, whenever he enters any ordinary dwelling-house. The faces are all lighted up with smiles, and every one is prepared to say something pleasant. By and by an elderly woman comes in with a strapping black-haired girl, her daughter, by her side. They have come to see the baby, and they have brought with them a fowl, a special gift for the young mother, who for the next month will need some nourishing food. Shortly after two or three more drop in with presents of pigs’ feet, and vermicelli, and hemp oil in which the dainties are to be fried. All these articles are supposed to be exceedingly nutritious and exactly suited to one in the condition of the mother.
It is a pleasant picture to look upon. The great Eastern sun outside is doing his best to flood the world with his beams, and he sends his rays flashing into the home, and he lights the faces of the women as with animated conversation they discuss how babies should be treated and how the mother should be nursed to keep off the evil spirits that at this particular crisis are roaming out seeking to find a chance of bringing disaster upon the family, and of carrying off the infant son that has brought happiness to the parents.
The scene presented to us on a similar occasion in the homes of the very poor is of a very different character from the one just described. Whilst the father and the mother have a joy as deep and as profound as that experienced by those who are better off, they have no visits from friends that troop in with presents and with loving greetings, and no anxiety is shown as to whether the baby shall ever grow up to be a great man, or whether the mother shall be so cared for that no mishap may befall her. The poor have no time for such luxuries, and so the arrival of a son and heir to the toils and sorrows of his parents usually makes little difference in the daily routine of the home. A tiny stranger has arrived with his pathetic appeal for the loving care and support of his mother, but the poor mother has to carry on her daily duties just the same as before, and no surprise is excited when she appears in the fields on the very same day and performs some of the heavy duties connected with the cultivation of their little farm.
LITTLE LADS.
LITTLE URCHINS.