But at last the heat was too much even for me, who am not wont to complain of whatever sort of weather is doled out to me, and I accepted the invitation of a friend to stay at Tongshan, which is a great railway centre, a place where there is a coal mine, and some large cement works run by capable and efficient Germans.
And at Tongshan I lived in the house that was held for defence during the Boxer trouble. The barrier at the gate—the barrier that is at the gate of all Chinese houses, to keep off evil spirits, who can only move in a straight line—was so curious that I took a photograph of it, and against the walls that surround the grounds were the look-out places which the railwaymen manned, and from which they kept watch and ward.
I have always liked the feeling of living in a fort—a place where men have helped to make history, but I have observed that it is always the immediate trifle that is to the fore that counts, and my friend's servants were a perpetual joy and delight to me. They used to write her letters. There was one, a touching one, from the milkman I shall remember with joy. A “cunningful” cook had misrepresented him, and he wished to be taken into favour again, and he signed himself distractedly “Your devoted milkman.” The cow was brought round so that it might be milked before the eyes of the buyer, and only a Chinaman, surely, would have been capable of concealing a bottle of water up his sleeves and letting it run slowly down his arm as he milked, so that the cow was unjustly accused of giving very poor milk. Besides, when the cow's character was cleared, who knew from where that water had been taken, and how much dirt it had washed off the arm down which it ran. No pleading took that milkman into favour again, despite the tenderness expressed in his signature. Another man had been away, and returning, wished a small job as watchman at six dollars a month, and begging for it by letter, he signed himself fervently “Your own Ah Foo.” But the crowning boy was the No. 1 boy. He was a delicious person without intending it. When first my friend engaged him, she acquired at the same time a small dog, and she soon realised that the rigorous Chinese winter was hard on dogs, and that Ben must have a little coat. The question was how to make the coat. No. 1 boy came to the rescue.
Mr ——— at the railway station had a dog, and “Marcus,” said the boy, “have two coats.”
“Oh well borrow one and copy it,” said his mistress, relieved.
“My tink,” said the boy confidentially, and he sank his voice, “Missie bolly, more better not send back.” And he looked at her to see if this wisdom would sink in.
“Boy!”
“Marcus have two coats,” repeated he reproachfully.
