Why, the whole front of the house was made so it could be opened up to the air and sunshine, as well as the view of passers-by. The family have few secrets, and do not mind letting others see how they keep house.
At this very moment, perhaps, Chin's mother is sitting on the edge of the bamboo platform, washing her feet in the river; his grandmother may be there preparing the vegetables for dinner; or, possibly, Chin himself is cleaning his teeth with a stick of some soft wood.
The boy's mother has taught him to be very careful of his teeth. It is a mark of beauty with her people to have them well blacked. They will tell you, "Any dog can have white teeth." But there is nothing they admire more than bright red gums showing plainly with two rows of even, dark-coloured teeth.
How do they make their gums such a fiery red? It is caused by chewing a substance called betel, obtained from a beautiful kind of palm-tree very common in Siam.
Many of Chin's brown cousins chew betel, as well as the people of his own land. It is even put in the mouths of babies. Betel-chewing grows to be such a habit with them that they become unhappy and uncomfortable if long without it. Even now, although Chin is only ten years old, he would say:
"I can go without food for a long time, if need be, but I must have my betel."
Let us go back to the boy's home.
If we should count the windows, we should find their number to be uneven. The Siamese believe something terrible would be sure to happen if this were not so. They seem to think "There is luck in odd numbers," for not only the steps leading to the houses, but the stairs leading from one floor to another must be carefully counted and made uneven.
There are three rooms in Chin's home. First, there is the sitting-room, where friends are received, although there is much less visiting done in Siam than in many other countries. It took little time and money to furnish the room. There are no pictures or ornaments here. There are two or three mats on which one may sit, and there is a tray filled with betel from which every one is invited to help himself.
If callers should arrive and the betel were not offered to them, they would feel insulted and would go away with the intention of never coming to that house again.