CHAPTER III.

LITTLE GOLDEN LILIES.

When I was about four my feet were bound. You must know that in China the smaller the feet the more a woman is admired. For over a thousand years the custom has been observed, and only a few give it up, even though, as the common saying has it, “For every pair of small feet there has been shed a bucket of tears.” So as my mother wished me to have “little golden lilies,” as they were called, she commenced to bind my feet early.

The calendar was consulted for a lucky day (it would never do to commence anything on an unlucky day), and mother brought some strips of calico a few inches wide and several yards long. With these she tightly bound my feet, making them narrow and pointed.

At first I went nearly crazy with crying. No one took any notice of it, and mother tried to console me by saying that no one would marry a woman with large feet. She told me that when she was married hers were only two and a half inches long. Day by day the binding was done until I wished I could die and be rid of the pain. Gradually it became less as the feet ceased to grow, and I was able to hobble about the house.

But with it all I was much more fortunate than little “Pearl,” my friend next door. They left the binding of her feet until she was nearly eight, and then bound them very tightly. She was only scolded and beaten when she cried, and the pain was so great she nearly died; and when one of her feet got very bad they called in the native doctor. He said it was a demon in her left leg, so they heated needles and poked them in her legs to let the evil spirit out. But she didn’t get better, so they took her to a charm priest some miles away. They couldn’t afford a chair, so little Pearl was forced to walk part of the way. The priest wrote some characters on paper, put them in water, and Pearl drank it. Then they paid a good sum of money and returned.

The long walk was too much for Pearl, and she had a long illness, and is now lame. They say it was because she, in her previous life, was a bad man—so she was born again as a woman, and has had all this pain.

I have heard that in the mission-schools of the foreigners the girls all have large feet; but I am sure they must look very coarse—and whoever will marry them? Still, I daresay it’s nice to be able to run about without falling. I remember once mother slipped on the ladder going into the loft, and fell, hurting her back; but she didn’t blame her feet. “Little golden lilies make an insecure footing,” says the proverb.

I was about eight when I was taken to my new home, and the following years were so full of sorrow that I hardly dare tell you about them. I was just a little slave-girl, nothing more. There are many thousands in the same plight in China. I was the property of my mother-in-law, and she was a bad-tempered and cruel woman. She seemed to take a delight in beating me, and was always thinking of some new way to make my life miserable; while from morning to night I had to work far beyond my power. The opium-eating father used to grab all the money he could, so the rice often barely went round, and I was continually being half-starved—only having gruel, and but little of that. All the menial work of the house fell to my lot, and, as I was at the beck and call of all, I was at it from morning to night.

The brothers, too, expected me to wait on them, and struck me if I didn’t obey their wishes. My mother-in-law’s cruel tongue and crueller hand drove me on all day, and late at night I was glad to rest my weary bones on the straw bed in the loft.

Things went from bad to worse. Not only was the father given to opium, but the mother and sons were all bad—continually drinking, card-playing, and quarrelling, till the house bore a bad name all round. Surrounding the house were several fields. Once there had been a large farm, but one by one the fields were sold for opium, until only a few were left. These were tilled by the sons and so brought in a little money.

[Illustration: The women and girls work all day transplanting rice.]

The thing we depended on most was cotton, and I had to take my share in cultivating it. The fields had to be constantly weeded, and that was done by the women and girls. As with our bound feet it is difficult to stand, we used to take small stools into the fields and sit with our hoe in our hands busily digging out the weeds. Then came cotton-picking—back-aching work, with the sun fiercely shining overhead, and plenty of angry words when the amount picked wasn’t as much as my mother-in-law thought it ought to be.

In the autumn and winter I learned to wind the cotton, and then to work at the loom, weaving the coarse white cloth of which our garments were made. This, with making shoes and cooking rice, was my chief work; and though I suffered much I dared not complain—for I was like the dumb man eating wormwood, unable to utter my misery.