The Yellow and White Agony. 337 



spent his time gossiping with his friends. As the days drew in, I 

 disliked being alone in the house during the long November 

 evenings. Although I had many kind friends who took pity on my 

 loneliness, very often I felt it would be more canny if Gee could be 

 induced to stay in the house till nine or ten o'clock. He did not 

 seem to like the idea at all when I suggested it, and nothing more 

 was said about it for a few days. Then he came with a proposal : 

 " Missus Gloman, I velly solly you all alone evening. I stay till 

 half-past nine or ten, but I like you teach me lead and write 

 English ; I get book. After work I come in ? You tink so ? " 



This was a quid pro quo with a vengeance ; but we soon settled 

 down to the evening lessons, and in six weeks' time, when my 

 husband came down for the winter, and the lessons had to be given 

 up, Gee could already write and read fairly well. Gee was the 

 only Chinaman I have ever seen on a horse, and when he went 

 out on the old white pony that his former master had left in our 

 stable, it was truly a sight to behold. The first time I saw him he 

 was carrying a huge bundle in one hand, the reins and his hat in 

 the other, his pigtail floating in the wind as the old pony ambled 

 into town. The evening afterwards when he came to have his 

 lesson he knelt down to the table to write. 



" Take a chair, Gee, you can't write like that." 



" O, yes ! I wlite like that to-day, I no can sit ; I lide too far 

 yesterday." 



My son was born during the winter, and Gee's delight knew 

 no bounds. 



" A boy all light, girls no good ; one day he be judge, I 

 hope." 



The one damper on this event for him, was the arrival of the 

 English nurse. He almost always turned his back when she spoke 

 to him, and was as disagreeable in every way as he could be to 

 her. Probably he considered she had an evil eye, for later on I 

 had a small boy in my employ who invariably turned his back 

 on me in the same manner, and when I asked him the reason 

 he told me I had " heap bad eye." One day Gee's complaints 



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