One day, I was lucky enough to see 2 forelgner—probably an American missionary—in the street and, being impelled by my childish euro Jouslty, I even threw a panada skin fon the stone pavement to seo. it he would tumble" over it and fall to rise, I hid myself behind the street corner, breathless with mischievous foxpectations, and watched. The banana skin'was right in his way. He trod on iti His feet slipped! But, sooner than I could laugh, he balanced imselt—there seemed to be something of born tap-dancer in him—and skipped over my trickery, leav-Ing my nurse-amah's tale unconfirmed. Twas utterly disappointed, of course, However, I had noticed that his rousers were black and rigid like a air of chimney, pipes, and appeared me ridiewlously queer. "How could then conceive that one day my own egs would become the inmates of those queer "chimney pipes"?
But 40 it happened. "And it took place about a dozen years later on me of the most sultry days of the ummer season, when the very sight of chimney pipes made one perspire!
was, indeed, so. humidly hot that! when I finished putting on my new! foreign outfit, 'I looked es if T had aken a real Turkish bath. My nother, then looking on, sarcastically remarked that I was "climbing up voleano." But I was cool as a cucumber.
The Answer Is "Sex"
To wear foreign clothes in sultry' weather is really nothing short of climbing up a voleano, especially as {was then "a greenhorn, and 50 clumsy that T nearly broke my neck while pressing the shirt buttons into my new, starched collar. All the: same, I deliberately east off my! cooler and more comfortable hempen own and went in for the "Turkish bath." But why? you may be curious! to know, Was it for encouraging export of wool? Certainly not! It sex.
Indeed, what else could it have been?" For then I was seventeen, cosh graduate from middle school and ready to enter college in the Autumn. I wanted to have" girl {elends. 'There wag a -girl's school right opposite mine, established by. the same thoughtful American missionary. Day after day, I met the tirls dri front, of the schoo! gate, T Saw them flutter about their' play-round oF peer at the boys through hel windows, I heard them singing or playing on the pianoforte, I sat compulsory ye service, with them on the benches "at, the
abe temptation was altogether too strong. Soon I was applying Haze-ne mow profusely to my face and pouting gallons of White Rose lotion on my smoothly combed hair, and even humming some love songs while pavs-ing by the girls. But all my efforts (auca tu Impress them, It seem~ eq. I studied into the cause of my Jdisas*.nus failures and that of some of my schoolmates' successes.
Lucky Boys had Forelen Clothes i found the lucky boys, as a rule, owned a, suit of foreign clothes. So i"went home and told. my mother that T must discard my Chinese wu. I explained to her that no one could ever go through college without being properly clad. "New jue can not be put into old bot-T preached to her, and threatened to shave my head to become monk rather than to receive West-em college education in my Chinese garments, The gospel analogy, of course, had no weight with my heathen mother, but the threat struck flat down 0 consent, since, being spoiled child, T was really capable jot any mischief, So T finally got my "new bottle." At heart, of course, I knew it was not for receiving new wine from my American missionary professors, but it was to go with the weaker vessels, T had never told this to my mother but she seemed to have perceived my secret motive. Her first comment on my foreign sult was that T looked andsomer int
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.
