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 CHAPTER V.

Over our stove was a paper figure of the kitchen god. He presides all the year round over the cooking arrangements, and listens carefully to all that is said. A few day before the close of the year he goes up to heaven to report all he has heard to the gemmy emperor, his master. He must have had a lot to tell about our house; so my mother-in-law took the precaution to daub his lips with sticky treacle so that he could not open his mouth and tell of her doings. Most of our neighbors did this, too; so I suppose they didn't feel any too comfortable about his report of them. At the new year he came down again—at least we put up a new one in the place of the one we had burned, which, I suppose, comes to the same thing.

The goddess of smallpox was much dreaded in our district. She usually got to work at the beginning of the summer, and unless big gifts were given to her, she revenged herself by killing large numbers of little children as well as grown-ups. I remember well how she came one summer. One by one of the children fell ill of "heavenly flowers," as the disease was called, and the temple was thronged with worshippers, while every house had its image of Niang-niang, to which incense was burned to ward off her anger. As nothing availed, a great procession was arranged for, in which