Sept. 1—All around the country lies quiescent in the depths of.its autumn sleep: withered maize-stalks have not been gathered in and the fast-fading cotton plants await the ministrations of the housewives before the first frosts come: tall sugar-canes are swiftly disappearing, aided no doubt by passing wayfarers whose leavings of bark and well-chewed cane litter every little path: only the yellowing bean-stalks (no higher the stunted cotton) seem to say in a self-satisfied manner, "well, we have done our job putting nitrogen back into the soil, so pick us or leave us just as you like" But in Our Village life is very strenuous, for are we not crowded out with cousins to the tenth degree from all the war-worn urban areas? Grandma, that fiercest of all females, seems fovhave lost her grip, and the voices of virile youth now control the village destinies. John-Willy for example, in soiled Scout uniform, is somewhat of a hero, taking backchat from none; while young Mr. Dong, bulging out of a Red Cross uniform several sizes too small for him, is the centre of attraction at the corner by the teahouse. Little Di-di, having scratched a shallow trench behind the bags of grain in front of the rice shop, lies flat across it with a piece of bamboo for a gun saying "Poem-poem-poem" and thus repelling the enemy of his imagine tion, The elder Miss Dong (now jobless and with hair unfrizzed) is arguing strenuously as io the price of a small piece of pork, while Grandpa Wang sits, spectacles on nose, go"ing up into the skies and oblivious of all the noise around him: nobody seems to notice him, for. all are too busy even to be sad, as Grandpa is. Only little Mei-mei has a fist in her eye and is howling out her grief...for she has flatly refused to be a Tung-yang soldier and has just received a buffet in that part of her anatomy where her trousers would be, if she' happened. to be wearing: them.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.