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Show evil spirits will think that a child with such a name is undesired, and will therefore be less likely to bring some evil upon him.) One day I asked Little Tiger's mother if she had any other children. ''Not now,'' she answered. ''A few weeks ago I gave birth to twins. But I had no money to care for them; so I gave the boy away, and let the little girl freeze,-it was during the bitter cold, you know, and I couldn't keep the house warm.'' ''How could you do such a thing?'' I asked her. ''What else could I do?'' she responded. ''They were beautiful babies, and I wanted to keep them; but I hadn't enough money to care adequately for the one child I had. What could I do with two more?'' Poor soul! In a land where desperate poverty is so common, there are many problems. I spent the second week of April in Ch'ing P'ing,-a town not quite twenty-five miles from Lintsing. I started a little while after breakfast, traveling as usual in a heavy two-wheeled spring-less cart, drawn by a mule, going at the rate of about three miles an hour. Soon after we left Lintsing, rain began to fall; and as the north wind rose, the weather became colder and colder. Late in the afternoon the rain turned to sleet. I wrapped myself in my steamer rug, but even so I was so cold that uppermost in my mind was the hope that some time I might be comfortably warm again. Mr. Hsu had lighted a charcoal fire, so after arriving at Ch'ing P'ing I was soon warm and dry. Mr. Hsu offered to lend me his sheepskin coat; and as I had not brought a warm coat with me, I accepted his offer very gratefully. I felt quite cheered and renewed in spirit after eating the very generons supper which Mrs. Hsu had prepared, millet soup, bean curds, fried cabbage, scrambled eggs, and mo-mo (steamed bread). During the time I spent in Ch'ing P'ing, there was one old woman who came to the Hsu home every day, Mrs. Chou. In spite of her advanced age£ she is past eighty) she wanted to learn to read enough to make her way successfully through at least a few hymns. She was then trying to learn the song '*I pray the Heavenly Father to save me," a simple Chinese hymn, to the tune of ''Nothing but the blood of. Jesus.'' I marveled at her patience in going over it scores of times, in the hope that she might finally read it correctly. The old-fashioned custom of having a market in various centers throughout the countryside still obtains in China. The markets are usually held every five days; and the people from miles around bring their various kinds of produce to sell. In sections of the country where newspapers and telephones are unheard of, and means of travel very limited, the market affords a grand and glorious occasion for sociability as well as for commercial purposes. The Sunday I was in Ch'ing P'ing happened to be market day in that town; and I was very much interested to see the people coming to church, carrying spinach, onions, leeks, and other things which they had bought before the service started. For the preacher in an outstation, the responsibility for meeting his parishioners on Sunday is not limited to the hour or so that the service of worship is in progress. At Ch'ing P'ing, the people began coming before breakfast. Before and after the meeting, Mr. and Mrs. Hsu and I spent the time greeting old friends, answering questions, helping some to learn hymns, and just visiting with the many who wanted to talk to us. During the service, dogs and chickens wandered in and out of the church in a most informal way; and several times the mournful braying of the donkeys in the yard made it hard for me to keep my mind on the service. But nobody else seemed even to notice these rather unconventional accompaniments of a service of worship. |
