Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 5 1887.djvu/134

 126 China, and it is almost as easy to find a wife there as it is in England; consequently very shortly after our friend Ah Kwaï set to work, he brought to his home a beautiful bride.

At first all went smoothly enough (it generally does, even in China). The young wife, who was fond of children, made a great pet of her stepson, and Ah Kwaï was congratulating himself on the excellence of his choice. Sometime afterwards the new wife. Ah Leen, who did not like to be inferior to the first wife, also presented her husband with a son; but she did not die, thinking it did not do to imitate people too far. The happy father thought that this new baby, Ah Tee (Chinese for little brother), would serve as a new link to make stronger the ties of love which existed already between him and his family; but alas! he knew not the heart of a jealous woman. As long as she had no son of her own Ah Leen thought her little step-son a very delightful plaything, but as soon as Ah Tee appeared she concentrated all her love on the new comer. Gradually all her affection for the first-born vanished, then jealousy and hatred took possession of her heart, and she even went so far as to grudge the food and clothing that had to be bestowed upon the poor child.

For several years envy and hatred tortured her heart cruelly, till at last one fine day she determined to free herself from her torment by getting rid of the unconscious cause of it.

She called the two boys to her and gave them both a basket of green beans, telling them that they were to go to a distant field and plant them, forbidding them, at the same time, to come back till the green leaves were seen above ground.

As she had taken great care to boil her step-son's portion she thought she was pretty safe never to see him again, and she began to think a great deal of herself and to think she was decidedly a clever woman. But, as the sequel will show, she was "counting her chickens before they were hatched," or, as the Chinese say, "naming her children before they were born."

Both boys started happy enough, until, when some little distance from home, Ah Tee found out that his brother's beans were bigger than his own. The little despot immediately began to make what is commonly called a fuss, until A Poon, who had been taught pretty