This text is part of:
[240]
“Muchee dollar, Muchee dollar!”
objected Ho Ling.
“No,” replied the carpenter, “very cheap.”
“Ten house-ten dollar-one hundred dollar?”
asked Ho Ling.
“Yes,” returned the carpenter, not thinking of his words.
“Then you makey, makey.”
When the carpenter set to work, seven fresh moon-faces came down by train, and, after calling on Ho Ling, slouched towards the back street, in which the new Mongolian town was starting into shape.
Squatting on the ground, each moon-face twiddled his bit of bamboo cane, chewed his morsel of betel nut, and watched the carpenter stake his poles and nail his planks.
“ Goodee buildee-ten dollars,” smirked Ho Ling when the first shed was roofed.
“ I'll put 'em all up for you in no time,” said the carpenter, pocketing his coin.
“ No wantee more house,” replied Ho Ling; “ me makee all, me makee all.”
In his new home in America, moon-face has to deal with new materials.
In his native land bamboo is everything: here cedar is everything.
At home
1875.
Tufts University provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.