Cheers you up remarkable.
Look at Kiyi! Ain't he great?"
Sadler went on in this way unloading his mind of odds and ends. Down
on the slope below Nan was thumping Soaker on the back to make him
mind her. She wore a striped cloth and a string of beads for her
clothes. Laying down the law appeared to run in her family. Soaker
took his thumping in a way that I judged it was a custom between
them. Little Kiyi crept up the steps and squatted on the stone floor
in front of us. He had a big head, and arms and legs like dry reeds.
He sat, solemn and still, while Sadler was unloading his mind, and it
seemed to me that Kiyi was mysterious, same as the bronze Buddhas in
the cone pagoda.
"He's got it," says Sadler, speaking husky. "Worse'n I did."
"Got what?" I says.
Sadler's face had grown tired, sort of heavy and worn, while he was
looking down at Kiyi. "Born with it. He got injected with the extract
of misery beforehand," he says. "He was born wishing he wasn't. I
know what it is, but he don't know what it is, Kiyi don't. He don't
know what's the matter. First thing he saw was the cholera."
All about the gardens there was a tinkle of bells made by the wind
blowing them, and a gong kept muttering somewhere.
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