The headquarters of the family were in a town some miles south of Peking, a place of dust and sand, with streets worn far below the level of the doors. Like all these villages on the flat plains of Chihli, it was subject to relentless alternation of flood and drought, so that the people were perennially close neighbors to starvation. They took the fortunes of the weather philosophically, sowed crops of millet, beans, sorghum, and wheat against the gamble of rain, gossiped over the salt water they drew from alkali-tainted wells, and congratulated themselves if famine seemed no nearer than a year away.
Into this land, making a doomed resistance against the desert which the winds each year brought closer and closer, the t'ai-t'ai went gladly. She did not sigh for the extravagance of mountains, even with tempting glimpses of the Western Hills shimmering above the mirage of the horizon. She sat with utter contentment in the dirty hallways of a huge ramshackle home, all decay and discomfort behind pretentious walls, and thought nothing strange of reducing Nancy to this, giving her pigs and chickens, mangy dogs, slovenly women, sprawling brats for lifelong society, courtyards reeking with the stench of manure for her window upon the joys of the world.
Her news caused great excitement. Fifteen thousand taels was a large sum; remarkable was the crop of prodigies who sprang up to claim it. No one, of course, suggested his own sons. In a land where smallpox and typhus and cholera were the normal hazards of the day, five sons were not too great an insurance against being left without heirs; even the likeliest boys died suddenly: one day, active and grimy good health, the next day, a stomach ache and the coffin. An indiscreet fondness for melons could mow down whole harvests of children. No one quite took it upon himself to offer up even the youngest of his sons as a husband for Nancy. They were all sure to claim their share of the fifteen thousand taels, no matter whose son secured it; the ingenious communism of a Chinese family guaranteed this hope. Why be too forward in sacrifice? Every father regretted the stupidity of his own offspring, extolled unselfishly the superior talents of his nephews and cousins.
Finally the t'ai-t'ai lost patience.
"Bah! if you found lumps of gold in your fields you would complain about the rockiness of the soil."
Prodded by her vigorous scorn, they stumbled upon the happy thought of asking her to suggest Nancy's suitor.
The next few days were busy ones. The t'ai-t'ai visited all branches of the family and hauled up the sheepish youths to answer her questions. Seldom in her life had the t'ai-t'ai been in such fine fettle; she was as racy, as outspoken as a dowager of twice her winters and paid back arrears of jealousy and spite in the sarcasm she poured out so freely upon the offspring of the relations who once used to slight her. There was not a likely candidate, she vowed, not one whom Hai Lao-ye could not quash with a single stern glance from above his tortoise-rimmed spectacles. What stupid optimism their parents showed to bring up this generation to be gentlemen. They would gape open-mouthed at a ricksha and fall headlong from the windows of a railway carriage when the fire-wagon lurched forward. Better, far better, to teach them to curse mules and make them competent donkey-drivers; how could a full stomach go with an empty head, long nails with an open mouth?
The t'ai-t'ai's abuse was accepted without resentment. It was so impartially distributed that everyone had the chance to grin at the discomfiture of his neighbor. Her sarcasm was the privilege of success. The woman held the whip hand over her kinsfolk in her right to dispose of fifteen thousand taels. There was none among them who would not have asked the same interest from his capital. At the bottom of it all, they knew she was observing and when she decided they were ready to acclaim her decision for the t'ai-t'ai, after much sifting and searching, gave her choice to a boy who was undeniably the ornament of the family.
He was the son of an older brother and had surmounted the handicaps of a mother untaught, a home ignorant of hygiene, a family in which no one hesitated to trespass on the privacy of others. As though these were the conditions necessary to producing his type, he had grown up, like so many Chinese youths bred in the same unpromising way, a tall, sturdy, clear-complexioned boy, with quick, intelligent eyes, high forehead, slender, masterful hands.
She had the lad suitably clothed, brought him to Peking with his father, installed them both in a hotel, and then informed her husband that Nancy's match had been found. The account she gave of his talents would have done credit to the ablest scholar of the Han-lin.