Tears
streamed down the woman's cheeks as she crooned and babbled to the
child in a language only a tender mother knows, but in her eyes was
the look of a soul crucified with helpless suffering.

I slipped all the money I had into the straw cradle and fled to our
room. Jack was asleep. I got into my bed and covered up my head
to shut out the horrors of the multitude that are hurting my own
heart like an eternal toothache.

But, honey, bury me deep when there isn't a smile lurking around
the darkest corner. Neither war nor famine can wholly eliminate
the comical. Yesterday afternoon some audacious youngsters asked
me to chaperon a tea-party up the river. We went in a gaily
decorated house-boat, made tea on a Chinese stove of impossible
shape, and ate cakes and sandwiches innumerable. Aglow with youth
and its joys, reckless of danger, courting adventure, the promoters
of the enterprise failed to remember that we were outside the city
walls, that the gates were closed at sunset and nothing but a
written order from an official could open them. We had no such
order. When it was quite dark, we faced entrances doubly locked
and barred. The guardian inside might have been dead for all he
heeded our importunities and bribes. At night outside the huge
pile of brick and stone, inclosing and guarding the city from
lawless bandits, life is not worth a whistle. A dismayed little
giggle went round the crowd of late tea revelers as we looked up
the twenty-five feet of smooth wall topped by heavy battlements.
Just when we had about decided that our only chance was to stand on
each other's shoulders and try to hack out footholds with a bread
knife, some one suggested that we try the effect of college yells
on the gentlemen within. Imagine the absurdity of a dozen
terrified Americans standing there in the heart of China yelling in
unison for Old Eli, and Nassau, and the Harvard Blue!

The effect was magical. Curiosity is one of the strongest of
Oriental traits, and before long the gates creaked on their hinges
and a crowd of slant-eyed, pig-tailed heads peered wonderingly out.
The rest was easy, and I heard a great sigh of relief as I
marshaled my little group into safety.

Jack's many friends here in Peking are determined that I shall have
as good a time as possible. Worried by disorganized business,
harassed with care, they always find opportunity not only to plan
for my pleasure but see that I have it, properly at