Entering into a conversation intended for the whole village to hear, my
bulky coolie sublet his contract for two tsien for the eighty li--we had
already done fifty. The man hired was a weak, thin, half-baked fellow,
whose body and soul seemed hardly to hang together. He was the first to
arrive. As soon as he got in; this same man took a needle from the
inside of his great straw hat and commenced ridding his pants of
somewhat outrageous perforations. Such is the Chinese coolie, although
in Yuen-nan he would be an exception. Late at night he offered to put a
shoe on my pony. I consented. He did the job, providing a new shoe and
tools and nails, for 110 cash--just about twopence.
I could not help, thinking of the children I had seen to-day, "Sad for
the dirt-begrimed babies that they were born." These children were all a
family of eternal Topsies--they merely grew, and few knew how. They are
rather dragged up than brought up, to live or die, as time might
appoint. Babies in Yuen-nan, for the great majority, are not coaxed, not
tossed up and down and petted, not soothed, not humored. There are none
to kiss away their tears, they never have toys, and dream no young
dreams, but are brought straight into the iron realities of life.
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