Page:Village life in Korea (1911).djvu/200

170 the people among whom she was born and among whom she must live and die to send their girls away to become the wives of boys or men of whom they had heard little and knew less. The poor little bride was led out and placed in the chair, her little body trembling with fear and emotion, while the sobs from her little heart could not be suppressed into quietness. I stood there and looked as she entered the chair. The curtains were drawn down tightly around and she was hidden from the sight of mortal man; but those sobs could not be suppressed by the black curtains of a closed chair. The men took up the chair and slowly made their way up the winding path on the mountain side, and I could hear the cries of that child coming as from the heart of despair! The parents and other friends present seemed no more affected by her cries than if they had been only the squealing of a pig which had been sold and was being driven away by its owner.

O heartless custom of heathen ages! Who are you and what is your power, that you shall thus be allowed to rob innocent childhood of its joy and plunge these young lives into a night of inky blackness, whose deep despair cannot be reached and fathomed by human imagination?