CHAPTER I.

“LEAD ALONG A BROTHER.”

The first thing I know about myself is that I was born; and that I had a father and mother, too, just as you have. I thought I had better tell you this, as I have often heard ignorant country people ask the missionary if in his country children are born the same as in China, just as they will ask him if there are a sun and moon, rivers and hills, there as here. My grandfather used to say that foreigners belonged to a country where people had holes in their chests and were carried about on a long pole by two men. But he had never seen any foreigners at all.

Of course when I was born nobody wanted me. Whoever wants girls? I was the first child; so my parents were bitterly disappointed. Well, I couldn’t help it; and I have often thought how hard it was that I should be badly treated, as if it were my fault. My father said bitter things to mother, so she called me “Yin-dee,” which means, “Lead along a brother.” After a time they got more used to me, and were not more unkind than most parents. Sometimes when I was extra good mother would take me in her arms and call me her “precious,” for, as the proverb says, “All have the parent heart.” Now, if I had been a boy how different it would have been—there would have been no end of rejoicing and feasting! My mother’s parents would have supplied me with a cradle and lots of pretty clothes. When a month old there would have been another feast, and the barber would have come to shave my head and mix the hair with rice and give it to the dog to eat, to make _me_ brave. I should always have had my own way and have been petted by all. When a year old, they would have called my relations together and spread before me a lot of things, to see what my future was to be. There would be books and pens, scissors and scales, a rule, and some money; and they would have waited to see which was the thing I grabbed. If it had been books how it would have pleased them, for it would have meant that I was to be a scholar; if scissors, then a tailor; and so on. Now, I wonder which I should have chosen? Not books, I’m afraid; for I don’t like learning—do you?

Well, as I wasn’t a boy, I had none of this, so had to be content. As smallpox was very bad, I had a label on my back to say I had already had it (though I hadn’t), but that was to deceive the goddesses. Then, to make quite sure, I had a cloth monkey strung round my neck, which made a nice plaything. I am afraid I wasn’t always good at night—I am sure you all are!—but cried, for I didn’t have enough to eat most of the time; so father got the teacher next door to write a verse and paste it on the wall outside. This is how it goes:

Tien hwang, hwang, dee hwang, hwang, Ngo jah yo go yea coo long, Go wong jwin dz nien san bien, Ee jo shway dao da tien liang.

In English it is—

Ye gods in the heavens, ye powers on the earth, My baby began from the hour of her birth With horrible screams to rend the night! O passing stranger, these my rhymes Read, I pray you, through three times, And then she will sleep till broad daylight.

But I’m afraid there were not many who read them three times, for it didn’t make much difference. Still, it was the correct thing to do, so mother felt satisfied.