Shall we look in to see them at breakfast? Tea for the children as well as for the father and mother. They have no milk, and do not like to drink water, so they take many cups of tea every day. And here, too, are their bowls of rice upon the table, but no spoons or forks with which to eat it. Pen-se, however, does not need spoon or fork; she takes two small, smooth sticks, and, lifting the bowl to her mouth, uses the sticks like a little shovel. You would spill the rice and soil your dress if you should try to do so, but these children know no other way, and they have learned to do it quite carefully.
The sticks are called chopsticks; and up in the great house on the hill, where Pen-se went to carry fish, lives a little lady who has beautiful pearl chopsticks, and wears roses in her hair. Pen-se often thinks of her, and wishes she might go again to carry the fish, and see some of the beautiful things in that garden with the high walls. Perhaps you have in your own house, or in your schoolroom, pictures of some of the pretty things that may have been there,—little children and ladies dressed in flowery gowns, with fans in their hands; tea-tables and pretty dishes, and a great many lovely flowers and beautiful birds.
But now she must not stop to think. Breakfast is over, and the father must go on shore to his work,—carrying tea-boxes to the store of a great merchant. Lin, too, goes to his work, of which I will by and by tell you; and even Pen-se and her little sister, young as they are, must go with their mother, who has a tanka-boat in which she carries fresh fruit and vegetables, to the big ships which are lying off shore. The two little girls can help at the oars, while the mother steers to guide the boat.
I wish I could tell you how pleasant it is out on the river this bright morning. A hundred boats are moving; the ducks and geese have all gone up the stream; the people who live in the boats have breakfasted, and the fishermen have come out to their work. This is Lin's work. He works with his uncle Chow, and already his blue trousers are stripped above his knees, and he stands on the wet fishing-raft watching some brown birds. Suddenly one of them plunges into the water and brings up a fish in its yellow bill. Lin takes it out and sends the bird for another; and such industrious fishermen are the brown cormorants that they keep Lin and his uncle busy all the morning, until the two large baskets are filled with fish, and then the cormorants may catch for themselves. Lin brings his bamboo pole, rests it across his shoulders, hangs one basket on each end, and goes up into the town to sell his fish. Here it was that Pen-se went on that happy day when she saw the little lady in the house on the hill, and she has not forgotten the wonders of that day in the streets.
The gay sign-posts in front of the shops, with colors flying; the busy workmen,—tinkers mending or making their wares; blacksmiths with all their tools set up at the corners of the streets; barbers with grave faces, intently braiding the long hair of their customers; water-carriers with deep water-buckets hung from a bamboo pole like Lin's fish-baskets; the soldiers in their paper helmets, wadded gowns, and quilted petticoats, with long, clumsy guns over their shoulders; and learned scholars in brown gowns, blue bordered, and golden birds on their caps. The high officers, cousins to the emperor, have the sacred yellow girdle round their waists, and very long braided tails hanging below their small caps. Here and there you may see a high, narrow box, resting on poles, carried by two men. It is the only kind of carriage which you will see in these streets, and in it is a lady going out to take the air; although I am sadly afraid she gets but little, shut up there in her box. I would rather be like Pen-se, a poor, hardworking little girl, with a fresh life on the river, and a hard mat spread for her bed in the boat at night. How would you like to live in a boat on a pleasant river with the ducks and geese? I think you would have a very jolly time, rocked to sleep by the tide, and watched over by the dancing boat-lights. But this poor lady couldn't walk, or enjoy much, if she were allowed. Shall I tell you why? When she was a very little girl, smaller than you are, smaller than Pen-se is now, her soft baby feet were bound up tightly, the toes turned and pressed under, and the poor little foot cramped so that she could scarcely stand. This was done that her feet might never grow large, for in this country on the other side of the world one is considered very beautiful who has small feet; and now that she is a grown lady, as old perhaps as your mamma, she wears such little shoes you would think them too small for yourself. It is true they are very pretty shoes, made of bright-colored satin, and worked all over with gold and silver thread, and they have beautiful white soles of rice-paper; and the poor lady looks down at them and says to herself proudly, "Only three inches long." And forgetting how much the bandages pained her, and not thinking how sad it is only to be able to hobble about a little, instead of running and leaping as children should, she binds up the feet of Lou, her dear little daughter, in the great house on the hill, and makes her a poor, helpless child; not so happy, with all her flower-gardens, gold and silver fish, and beautiful gold-feathered birds, as Pen-se with her broad, bare feet, and comfortable, fat little toes, as she stands in the wet tanka-boat, helping her mother wash it with river-water, while the leather shoes of both of them lie high and dry on the edge of the wharf, until the wet work is done.
But we are forgetting Lin, who has carried his fish up into the town to sell. Here is a whole street where nothing is sold but food. I should call it Market Street, and I dare say they do the same in a way of their own.
What will all these busy people have for dinner to-day? Fat bears'-paws, brought from the dark forest fifty miles away,—these will do for that comfortable-looking mandarin with the red ball on the top of his cap. I think he has eaten something of the same kind before. A birds'-nest soup for my lady in the great house on the hill; birds' nests brought from the rocks where the waves dash, and the birds feel themselves very safe. But "Such a delicious soup!" said Madam Faw-Choo, and Yang-lo, her son, sent the fisherman again to the black rocks for more.
What will the soldiers have,—the officer who wears thick satin boots, and doesn't look much like fighting in his gay silk dress? A stew of fat puppies for him, and only boiled rats for the porter who carries the heavy tea-boxes. But there is tea for all, and rice, too, as much as they desire; and, although I shouldn't care to be invited to dine with any of them, I don't doubt they enjoy the food very much.
In the midst of all this buying and selling Lin sells his fish, some to the English gentleman, and some to the grave-faced man in the blue gown; and he goes happily home to his own dinner in the boat. Rice again, and fried mice, and the merry face and small, slanting black eyes of his little sister to greet him. After dinner his father has a pipe to smoke, before he goes again to his work. After all, why not eat puppies and mice as well as calves and turtles and oysters? And as for birds'-nest soup, I should think it quite as good as chicken pie. It is only custom that makes any difference.
So pass the days of our child Pen-se, who lives on the great river which men call the child of the ocean. But it was not always so. She was born among the hills where the tea grows with its glossy, myrtle-like leaves, and white, fragrant blossoms. When the tea-plants were in bloom, Pen-se first saw the light; and when she was hardly more than a baby she trotted behind her father, while he gathered the leaves, dried and rolled them, and then packed them in square boxes to come in ships across the ocean for your papa and mine to drink.