An elder sister of the teacher was married to a very poor man in a village called the "Tower of the Li Family," an insignificant hamlet consisting of only four families. In a year of great famine (1878), both the sister and her husband died, leaving three sons, all married. Of these the second died, and his widow remarried. The wife of the elder nephew of the teacher also died, and this nephew married for his second wife a widow, who had a daughter of her own, twelve years of age. This widow enjoyed the not very assuring reputation of having beaten her former mother-in-law, and also of having caused the death of her first husband. The wife of the third nephew was a quarrelsome woman, and the two sisters-in-law were always at sword's points, especially as all four of the adults and their four children shared the house and land together. In the month of August of that year the third nephew started for a distant market, with a boat-load of watermelons. On leaving he ordered his wife to fetch his winter garments, which she refused to do, upon which they had a fight, and he left. The next day was cold and rainy. The elder nephew was sitting in a neighbour's house, and heard his wife engaged in a violent quarrel with her sister-in-law, but he did not even rise to look into the merits of the case, and no other neighbour intervened to exhort to peace. The younger sister-in-law left the house in a fury, and from that time she disappeared. About noon her continued absence became alarming to the elder brother, who searched for her till dark, and then sent word to her mother's family at a village called "The Little Camp" two _li_ distant. This family, upon hearing of the disappearance of their daughter, raised a company of ten or a dozen persons, went over to the "Tower of the Li Family," entered the yard, and smashed all the water-jars and other pottery-ware which they could. "Peace-talkers" emerged, and succeeded in preventing the attacking party from entering the house, or the damage would have been still greater.