The calendar was invariably consulted for lucky days on which to begin everything; and when there was an eclipse we joined our neighbors with gongs and drums to prevent the heavenly dog swallowing the sun. Every spring there were the sacrifices at the ancestral graves, and much cash paper was burnt lest the spirits of our ancestors should not have enough to pay current expenses. Sacrifices were offered to them, and it was a general holiday. Any paper on which there was any writing or printing was carefully burnt. By this act merit was stored up. On All Souls’ Day my mother would burn incense and cash paper for the release of those wandering spirits who had no descendants to do it for them. Near by was a Buddhist temple, where a few lazy priests idled away the day in opium-smoking and gambling, bearing out the common saying, “Nine priests, ten rogues.” My brothers-in-law often went there to try to find out whether any proposed undertaking was going to turn out successfully. So by all these things you will see there was plenty of religion in our house, though but little goodness. New Year, which is the great Chinese festival, brought only added sorrows to me; for the time was given up to gambling, and I was busier than ever attending to the wants of the gamblers, and only received blows in return. Only at the new year itself was there a little rest from abuse, for at that time it is unlucky to use bad words. To name the evil spirits is to cause them to appear. I have heard missionaries say that they feel free to go where they like then without fear of abuse, for no one calls them “foreign devil” then, even though they make up for it later on. CHAPTER V. GODS MANY AND LORDS MANY. 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 days 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.