176
WEI PEH T'I
Feb. 17 1904
China Inland Mission
Taiho via Wuhu, China
My dear Louese:
Thank you very much for the beautiful calendar. It is most acceptable and I do thank you for the kind thought of me. I have been amusing myself above, trying to picture for you the pig-tails I have to look at very many mornings at Chinese prayers. A good part of the time the two Evangelists are out at work in the surrounding districts, but the other four are there, and most always, my teacher who has a very nice tail indeed. The caps are only worn in the winter and have a red button on the top. Sometimes the barber comes and he is in mourning so he wears a white button and a white cord is braided into his hair and his shoes and white. At the funeral he would wear a white gown and a white kind of labor's cap, or a piece of homespun muslin around his head.
We had a little girl here visiting us sometime ago because her mother had just died and she looked something like this, and she wears the white trousers and white on her head for some months, but the white shoes a year or more. A few scratches of my pen and you have a little idea but I am no "artist".
This has been a busy day, but nothing like yesterday. It is Chinese New Year and the people began coming before we had finished our breakfast, 7.30, and they kept it up all day. Some come to pay their respects and some say they do too, but it's more to get the tea and sweets which we provide. We began by giving each one cakes, nuts and sweets and tea, but the people came in such crowds and the things disappeared so rapidly we had to dwindle the giving down till it was tea and nothing more. Mrs. Malcolm has been better able to preach to them today, for there have not been so many and consequently more ready to stay awhile. Yesterday at one time we each had a room full and both talked at once. At this time the
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176
WEI PEH T'I
Feb. 171904
China Inland Mission
Taiho via Wuhu, China
My dear Louese:
Thank you very much for the beautiful calendar. It is most acceptable and I do thank you for the kind thought of me. I have been amusing myself above, trying to picture for you the pig-tails I have to look at very many mornings at Chinese prayers. A good part of the time the two Evangelists are out at work in the surrounding districts, but the other four are there, and most always, my teacher who has a very nice tail indeed. The caps are only worn in the winter and have a red button on the top. Sometimes the barber comes and he is in mourning so he wears a white button and a white cord is braided into his hair and his shoes and white. At the funeral he would wear a white gown and a white kind of labor's cap, or a piece of homsespun muslin around his head.
We had a little girl here visiting us sometime ago because her mother had just died and she looked something like this, and she wears the white trousers and white on her head for some months, but the white shoes a year or more. A few scratches of my pen and you have a little idea but I am no "artist”.
This has been a busy day, but nothing like yesterday. It is Chinese New Year and the people began coming before we had finished our breakfast, 7.30, and they kept it up all day. Some come to pay their respects and some say they do too, but it's more to get the tea and sweets which
we provide. We began by giving each one cakes, nuts and sweets and tea, but the people came in such crowds and the things disappeared so rapidly we had to dwindle the giving down till it was tea and nothing more. Mrs. Malcolm has been better able to preach to them today, for there have not been so many and consequently more ready to stay awhile. Yesterday at one time we each had a room full and both talked at once. At this time the
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