THE TAX COLLECTOR

Pearl Buck
The bus between Wang’s Corners & Li Family Village is always crowded, in spite of the
fact that the road lies between mountains that are haunted by bandits. This is because
at Wang’s Corners you can take another bus, which carries you to the nearest railway
station. Wang’s Corners is a plebeian town & would be today the village it has been for
centuries & still deserves to be, were it not for the spurious life it has taken on as a bus
stop for the Lung Tan railroad. Like all such mushroom towns, most of the people are
rogues in one way or another.

Among all citizens of Wang’s Corners there was none so warmly hated & feared as Big
Tooth Yang, the tax collector. In any region the tax collector is, of course, the worst
man. Even were he not, the sight of him is hateful to all hard-working people, & Big
Tooth would not have been handsome, even had he not been tax collector. The gods, in
some freak of merriment, had caused him to have one large front tooth which outran all
the others in its growth, & since he had a big mouth, opening as wide as window in his
face, this tooth stared everyone out of countenance. It had amazed his parents when he
was a child & had horrified his wife when she first saw him on their wedding night. It still
horrified her, so that she had simply made it the rule of her life never to look at her
husband. Since it is also good manners for a woman never to look at a man, this was
not noticed.

The tax collector himself had been deeply influenced by this big tooth of his. As a boy
he had found that fear can become a substitute for liking, & when he realized that
because of his grotesque appearance no one could like him without great effort, he
allowed their fear to suffice him. His mother was a sensible woman, & she had tried to
teach him that because he had this fearsome tooth, he must atone for it by more than
usual goodness & kindness, in order to have the friends that all men need. But he found
that it was hard to be good & easy to be evil, & to be continually kind made him irritable.
Persuaded by the horror in the eyes of others when they saw him, he early gave up
trying to obey his mother.

Instead, he allowed his big tooth to shape him into a rough, harsh, cruel human being.
As a boy he pushed other boys down into the dust of the road as he passed, grinning at
them while he did so, & as a man he simply grinned at those he wished to subdue. It
was natural, therefore, that he should apply to the provincial government for the post of
tax collector in Wang’s Corners & inevitable that the post should be given to him.

It must not be thought that the citizens of Wang’s Corners were so servile, however, as
to suffer him without rebellion. The boys who had grown up with Big Tooth Yang never
forgot that he had kicked them & pushed them as children, & when he became tax
collector all their memories rose up against him.
But who can be successful against a tax collector? He had the resources of the whole
region at his hand. Let any man make a good bargain on a pig & Big Tooth stood in his
doorway.

‘I claim the tax on your profit for the sake of the nation,’ he always said loudly.

‘What has the nation to do with my pig?’ the man might cry. ‘ My pig was my own, out of
my own sow, reared on the leavings from my own harvests.

1
‘The government has commanded me to take one-third share of all business, ‘ Big
Tooth declared: ‘I am allowed to use force if necessary.’

‘Force’ meant that the Chief of Police in Wang’s Corners & his six policemen would
march into the house & stay there to be fed & sheltered, to sleep on the beds & sit on
the chairs. This was horrible, & if there were young women in the house it was
shameful. So, groaning & cursing Big Tooth’s ancestors, the man would pour into the fat
palm the tax money.

It is doubtful whether these citizens of Wang’s Corners could ever have gathered the
strength to free themselves of the curse of Big Tooth, if it had not been for some events
which took place within a few days of one another, just after the harvesting of the rice.
The whole countryside was goaded to a height of fury because Big Tooth had visited
every house & demanded a share of one-third of the harvest for the nation. By this time
the people heartily hated the nation, because to them it now meant only Big Tooth.

‘What is this “nation” he keeps talking about?’ they complained in loud voices to one
another. ‘This nation does nothing for us. It does not feed our children or care for our
old. It does not plough our fields or cut the sheaves. It does not even give us good
roads, nor even so much as protect us from the bandits in the hills.’

For this was another grievance, that when Big Tooth had taken a share for the nation he
talked about, the bandits also came down from the hills to claim their share.

‘I would be hard put to it,’ Old Li declared, at the Li Family Village, ‘to know which are
the bigger bandits, Big Tooth & his Nation, or that yellow dog & his little dogs up there in
the mountains.
But even this might not have stirred the citizens to any action, so deeply peaceful
were they. For when Big Tooth had gone away & they had sat & moaned a while, they
wiped their faces on their blue cotton girdles, looked round at their wives & children, &,
in spite of themselves, they began to smile. Life was still good.

‘Shall we allow rogues to make us always miserable?’ they asked themselves. ‘Come,
there is only this one Big Tooth, & he cannot be everywhere at once, nor can he live for
ever, & the bandits are in the hills, & when they have once come, they will not come
again for a while.’

So life would go on again in Wang’s Corners, & in the Li Family Village, & the people
who lived there followed the example of Big Tooth’s wife & turned their faces away from
him.

It might have gone thus for the rest of Big Tooth’s life, had he not decided one day to
take a concubine. The one sorrow of his life was that he had no son. He was growing
richer every day, & he had added courts to his house & put in a fishpond & a garden. He
ate the food he liked best for every meal, so that a feast was no longer a feast to him.
He had servants & he had even a motorcar. This was an old machine, it is true, but it
still had its four wheels & the engine. Anyone could see the engine, for the cover to it
was gone. When Big Tooth bought this machine, he had asked about the cover & its
owner had replied, ‘It was a matter of continually opening & shutting that cover
whenever the engine had to be fed & watered, so for convenience I had it taken off.’
This was reasonable & so Big Tooth had bought the machine. It extended the length of

2
his arm, for now he could go out into the country & collect tax to the distance of a
hundred miles around him. He was no longer limited to the bus between Wang’s
Corners & the Li Family Village.

But none of these things took the place of the son. His wife, though she continued pretty
& gentle, also continued barren, & no amount of scolding produced any change in her.
At last she said one day with the patience which was habitual to her, ‘My husband, why
do you not take a concubine? With your riches & position you could have any young
woman in the town, & perhaps she will be luckier for you than I am.’

‘Two woman under one roof always make trouble,’ he retorted.

‘Not under your roof,’ she replied sweetly. ‘I promise you I will welcome her & treat her
as my sister.’

This put the idea into Big Tooth’s head. He found, as he remembered all the young girls
he had seen lately, that a certain handsome young face was already in his mind, & that
this face belonged to the only daughter of old Li, a farmer outside the Li Family Village.
The two, father & daughter, lived in a small half-ruined house on a parcel of land to the
south of the village; & since there was no son, the young girl helped her father in the
field, & that was how Big Tooth had seen her. He had not noticed her until recently
because he had seen her grown up from an unkempt motherless little girl, whose black
hair was burnt tawny brown by the sun, into the young woman he had noticed only one
day recently, while she had been beating out grain against the side of the threshing box.
It was the day he had gone to collect the tax.
Sitting in his garden he thought how healthy she had looked & how red her cheeks
were. She was a tall girl, but then he was a tall man, & he was tired of small, puny
women like his wife.

‘She’ll be hard to manage, but that is nothing to me,’ he thought, boastfully, ‘because I
manage everybody.’

It was from such thinking that he sauntered out of the town a few days later & went in
the evening to Old Li’s tiny farm. The young woman was sitting on a bench by the door
eating a watermelon. She had a slice of the fruit to her mouth, & Big Tooth saw that it
was the golden-hearted variety, which is sweeter than any other. Over it she looked at
him with her large, lively black eyes. When she saw him she rose promptly, the fruit
steel between her teeth, & went inside the house. Instantly, Old Li came out, buttoning
his faded blue jacket about him.

‘You must excuse me that I was not at the door,’ he said to Big Tooth. ‘I was just
washing myself after coming home from my field.’

Big Tooth sat down on the bench that was still warm from the young girl’s body. ‘That
was a fine water-melon,’ he said; ‘I have not eaten watermelon in a long time. Give me
a slice of it.’

Old Li called out at once to his daughter: ‘Bring some of the melon to our guest!’
The young girl’s voice came back clearly: ‘I can’t. I have eaten the last piece.’
And while they heard this, she added impudence to what she had just said. ‘It is one
thing he can’t tax – it’s inside me.’ Then she laughed loudly.
Old Li was struck with terror but Big Tooth laughed, too. ‘Now I could tax you just the
same,’ he remarked. ‘ I can ask for the young woman herself.’

3
Old Li tried to make a laugh also, & then he said, ‘It has been a good day – not too hot,
nor too cold.’
‘Don’t talk about the weather,’ Big Tooth said. ‘I mean what I just told you. I want the
young woman.’
Old Li grinned, & fright nailed the grin on his face. ‘You are joking,’ he said. ‘She’s –
she’s betrothed.’
This was a lie, for his daughter, whose name was Liehsa, had steadfastly refused to
marry until she found a young man who would take her surname for his, so that her
father would have a son. But what young man wanted to be the son of a poor old
widower with only a few hundred yards of land for a field? To find some one poorer than
they, who was also strong & handsome, clever & good, was no small task.

‘He is in the army,’ Old Li said faintly of this young man who did not exist, ‘but he will
come at any time & he would kill me, & his family would leave me unburied if he found I
had not kept faith with him.’
‘I will settle that,’ Big Tooth said. ‘He’ll be afraid of me.’
‘Oh, no, he fears on one,’ Old Li said positively. ‘You forget he has been fighting the Jap
devils & he has seen the red-haired Americans also, & he feared none of them.’

Big Tooth instantly began to burn with a raging jealousy. ‘Tell your daughter to come
out,’ he commanded.

Old Li called feebly, ‘Liehsa, come & see our guest!’

Liehsa called back pleasantly in the same clear voice. ‘I’m busy. I can’t come out.’
‘Does she know who I am?’ Big Tooth asked loudly.
‘Do you know who he is?’ Old Li echoed.
‘The tax collector!’ Liehsa called back, laughing. ‘But I am not taxable!’ she added.

‘You see how spoiled she is,’ Old Li said eagerly. ‘She is all I have & she is lazy,
disobedient, & dirty. She eats all the time & she does nothing. She would quarrel with
your honorable lady & make a hell of your home.’
‘She needs beating,’ Big Tooth declared, ‘and I would enjoy beating her.’
His big tooth gleamed out of his smiling mouth & Old Li shuddered.
‘Give me a few days to get her used to the thought,’ he begged.
Big Tooth rose. ‘I will except her seven days from today,’ he announced, & went away.
But at the edge of the threshing floor he paused. ‘If you arrange this affair well,’ he
remarked, ‘I will allow you freedom from taxes so long as you live.’ He chuckled behind
his big tooth. ‘And if there are taxes in the world beyond, as of course there are, I will
speak for you myself to the head god in hell.’
Old Li tried again to laugh but no sound would come out of his dry mouth & so he only
bowed. When Big Tooth’s heavy figure had completely disappeared from sight, he sat
down on the bench & began to wail, & Liehsa at once ran out.

She scolded her father heartily. ‘I heard every word that accursed one said, & I heard all
you said, too. Father, I don’t know what your mind is, but I’ll tell you mine. I will not go to
his house.’
‘Wait…’ Old Man Li said.
‘I will wait for ever,’ she said, ‘but I will not go.’
‘You must remember that we are helpless,’ the old man began.
‘I will not go,’ Liehsa said.
‘And he is the tax collector, the powerful one…’
‘I will not go,’ Liehsa said.

4
 ‘He will free us from taxes,’ Old Li pleaded.
‘I will not go,’ Liehsa said.
Old Li grew a little angry now on his own account. ‘Stop saying that & tell me how I can
prevent it,’ he said.

Liehsa opened her big black eyes at him widely. ‘You have nothing to do with it,’ she
said. ‘I just will not go.’
‘He said you need a beating, & so you do,’ Old Li retorted.
‘No one can beat me,’ Liehsa retorted, ‘& certainly not he.’
Upon this their day ended most unhappily & they went to their rooms, & the old man
turned a hundred times on his bed & Liehsa sat up, thinking hard.

When morning came they both had come to no conclusion except that they must go to
all the people they knew in Wang’s Corners & ask for help. They had decided upon
Wang’s Corners because Liehsa was ashamed for any of her relatives in the Li Family
Village to know, even, that Big Tooth wanted her for his concubine. They set out to go
by bus as soon as they had tasted the breakfast for which they had no appetite.

At the doorstep they had a discussion. Liehsa had put on her best blue jacket & white
cotton socks & new cloth shoes. She had, beyond that, put on her silver earrings, which
she wore only at New Year.

‘Do you think it well,’ Old Li now asked, looking at her, ‘to dress yourself up to look your
best? Oughtn’t you to look ugly so as to appear as miserable as you are?’

‘I thought of that,’ Liehsa replied, ‘but then it occurred to me that men will be more sorry
for me if I look beautiful.’
‘True, true…’ Old Li said, & so they set forth on their mission.

Alas that Old Li was a widower & that Liehsa was motherless! For had the good wife &
mother been alive, she would have told them that it is not the men who decide matters
even in Wang’s Corners, but the women. When pair came to the doors of the houses of
such families as they knew, when they were invited in, it is true that the men, looking at
Liehsa’s fresh & pretty face, felt an instant new range against Big Tooth.

‘This is really too much,’ each declared in his own way. ‘We have endured enough from
Big Tooth in his robberies of whatever belongs to us, but if he is going to begin to take
concubines from among our best-looking young women, then it is time for him to be put
to death.’

This was most comforting to Old Li & Liehsa. But, sadly enough, it was the women who
spoke next & what each said in her own way was something like this: ‘I don’t see that it
would be so bad for Liehsa to be the concubine of Big Tooth. He is rich & he has the
biggest house in town, & it is well known that his wife is good-tempered. After all, what
is Liehsa? Nothing but a girl from the Li Family Village. She could do much worse than
to be the concubine of a man in Wang’s Corners.’

The men heard their wives speak thus –when they were ill-tempered they said it at
once, & when they were kind they spoke in pitying voices to Liehsa & Old Li, & waited
until they were gone, but what they said amounted to the same thing. The men were
prudent, & now to the trouble of fighting against Big Tooth they had the trouble also of

5
arguing with their wives & maintaining that Liehsa was nothing to them-that they had not
even seen that she was pretty.

By the end of the day, half the homes in Wang’s Corners were in a state of irritation
because husband & wife were angry with one another, & all sorts of irrelevant things
were being said. For example, Mrs. Ying at the street of the Three Ghosts said to Mr.
Ying, as they lay on opposite sides of their big bed, ‘I cannot understand why anybody
in Wang’s Corners has to undertake a matter for someone surnamed Li, who does not
live here but belongs to the Li Family Village. Why didn’t they go to their own village
instead of coming over here to town?’

‘I suppose they thought we would have more power over our own townsman, the tax
collector.’ Mr. Ying replied. ‘Anyway, I have told you that I will have nothing to do with
the matter, & I wish you would let me go to sleep.’

‘But the way you stared at the girl!’ Mrs. Ying cried, beginning to sob.

Mr. Ying bounced out of bed. ‘I am tired of hearing you say that!’ he shouted. ‘I didn’t
stare at her! I presume she has black eyes & hair, since she is a Chinese. Beyond that,
I know nothing. I am going to sleep in the main room on the couch, which is as hard as
the bottom of the creek.’

This sort of things went on in a score of houses that night. As for Liehsa & Old Li, they
had returned by bus & sat mournfully in their little house, & Liehsa talked about running
away.
‘Where would you run?’ Old Li inquired.
‘I could run away & join the Women’s Army,’ Liehsa said.
‘If you do that, I will swallow poison,’ Old Li declared.

This sort of talk went on until they were both exhausted & went to bed. ‘At least,’ Old Li
said as they parted, ‘let us wait until after the Fair tomorrow.’

The next day was the Fair at the Li Family Village. It came only once a year & the whole
village prepared for it for days. Farmers came from miles around & brought their
produce, their pigs & chickens, their largest melons & radishes, their longest turnips &
greenest cabbages. Usually, the citizens from Wang’s Corners would not have come to
this rustic occasion, but so many of the husbands had been made miserable the night
before, that when the bus left Wang’s Corners the next morning it was quite full of men
who had said to their wives, ‘I am going to be late at work tonight.’ They were anxious
for a day’s rest from their wives & also for recreation. All sorts of jugglers & dancers
attended the Fair. Two or three men of Wang’s Corners honestly wanted to help Liehsa
& Old Li, & had made up their minds to see if some of the citizens of the Li Family
Village could take up their defense. There were also two or three who simply & secretly
wanted to look at Liehsa again.

The bus had started just after dawn when, suddenly, it was called to a halt by a loud
horn, which all the citizens in the bus recognized at once as belonging to Big Tooth.
They looked out of the door less back of the bus & there he was, being driven along the
rough road by a poor relation. Big Tooth would have felt it beneath him to drive his own
car, & so he had a dozen or so of his poor relatives taught to do the menial task.

6
The bus stopped & Big Tooth climbed aboard in fury. ‘I sent word I wanted to go by bus
this morning to the Li Family Village,’ he bawled at the driver. ‘I am short of car drink.’

‘I didn’t get any word,’ the driver retorted. He was afraid of Big Tooth, but he was not
afraid to lie. It was true that one of the poor relations had sent word through a water-
carrier, who had relayed the word by a manure picker who was going along the road
towards the bus station, & the manure picker had told the bus driver, who had then
pretended he was deaf.

‘Just shut your mouth & go on!’ Big Tooth shouted. Everybody had stood when he got
in, & he chose the seat he liked best at the back of the bus, & he sat down where he
could feel the cool air, not speaking to anybody.

All sat down, & each man hated Big Tooth freshly, not only for all the taxes he had
collected in the past, but because he had looked at a handsome young girl & wanted for
his concubine, & beyond that they hated him because he had been the cause of trouble
in their homes & a sleepless night.

When hearts are full of hatred, which they dare not vent, silence is best. All were silent,
all looked out of the windows from which the glass had long since disappeared. But this
was only an advantage, for had there been glass it would have been too dirty for them
to see the freshly mown fields & the flocks of white geese & ducks that were wandering
over them, picking up the fallen grain.

Be sure that Big Tooth saw every duck & every goose & counted the stacks of grain. He
was coming today to the Fair to watch the business that was done & to take his toll.
Before the day was over he planned also to go to see Old Li, & he had made up his
mind that he would not take ‘no’ for an answer. By this time, seven days hence, Liehsa
would be in his house as a concubine. He had already told his wife. She had taken the
news in silence & without surprise, almost, indeed, as though she did not care, & this
had encouraged him.

‘You show no shame that I have to bring another woman into the house,’ he scolded at
the breakfast table where he ate alone, while she served him.
‘I am as the gods made me,’ she sighed.
What he could not know was that as soon as he had gone she sat down in what
appeared to be complete idleness & thought about the young girl Liehsa whom she had
never seen. She felt fond of her already & grateful to her, & then she felt sorry for her. It
was so terrifying to be married to Big Tooth. There were no compensations, unless one
had a child, but what if the child were like Big Tooth? In her agitation at this thought, she
grew quite ill, & felt that she must take steps. But what could a weak woman do?

‘I can only pray,’ she thought.

So she washed herself & brushed hair & put on a clean coat & with her maid -servant
she walked by side streets out of the town & to a temple outside. There she slowly
climbed the three hundred stone steps that led to the temple, & she paid the priest who
welcomed her & went in to the goddess who sat in a little crypt in the solid rock of the
mountain. She liked this little goddess because she looked shy, sitting there in the half
darkness, & as if she would perhaps understand shy & sad-hearted women.

7
There, alone with the goddess, she lit the two candles & explained the situation in half-
whispering words, & the goddess looked down at her through the flickering light &
seemed to listen.

‘You know, Lady, I should like to have the young girl in the house,’ Mrs. Big Tooth Wang
said earnestly. ‘It would be nice to have someone with me all the time, & we could talk
everything over together. It would be wonderful if she had a baby for me. We could be
mothers together. But what if the child turned out like Big Tooth? Could you prevent
that, do you think?’

She went on with this sort of talk for an hour or so, until she felt comforted, & then she
went home again, only saying to the goddess as she went, ‘I will leave everything to
you.’

Whether the goddess took any steps cannot be known. If she did, it is not to say she
came down from her fixed place in the crypt. Gods & goddesses do not communicate by
such means. It is matter of flying thoughts, feelings, wings in the air, spirit touching
spirit. Probably some such glancing brightness brushed the being of the great gray-
faced god that stood at the gate, that god who protects all good men & punishes the evil
ones. But such things cannot be known except that when the good pray, strange benefit
may come of it. While one cannot be certain that in this case, what happened was the
result of the visit to the goddess in the crypt, yet it can be said certainly that Mrs. Big
Tooth Wang was a good woman, Whether her visit to the goddess in the crypt was
useful or not.

It was a glorious day, & everybody who had anything to do with the Fair in the Li Family
Village was glad of this. It was so fine a ay that up in the mountains the air was stinging
with energy & the bandits could not sit still. They were playing about in the little bowl-like
valley, which was their lair, punching one another & pretending to make battles.

‘Why don’t we go to the Fair at the Li Family Village?’ the younger leader exclaimed.

‘Leave that village alone,’ the elder leader replied. The bandits had always the two
leaders, the younger to think of new & daring attacks & the elder to add prudence.

‘Only good farmers & such will be at that Fair,’ the old bandit went on. ‘It is shameful for
decent bandits if they begin to rob the good beyond what can properly be taken after
harvest.’

‘Then let’s go & rob the bus,’ the younger one urged. ‘None of the farmers will go by
bus. Likely, the passengers will just be gamblers & thieves & pickpockets, who always
travel in luxury.’

The old man had nothing to say to this, but he begged to be left behind, since he was
tired & preferred to keep his strength for bigger matters than holding up the bus. The
other older bandits chose to stay with him, & so it came about that only the younger
bandits ran down the stony mountain path, shouting & singing as they went. They had a
pair of field glasses they had taken from a rich German they had once robbed, &
through it they searched for the bus in the foothills below. Each of the twenty or so
young men took a look through the glasses & saw it crawling along the road some miles
away.
‘It looks like a beetle!’

8
‘It goes slowly because it is so heavy laden!’
‘It will be lighter when we get through our work!’ So they talked & joked & they went over
the countryside, their strong brown legs marching together in unison. Before them
people disappeared, & it was as though they walked through an uninhabited land & this,
too, they joked about.

It was all as easy as play, & indeed it was play. They waited until the bus came into a
hill, which had been cut in two to allow the road to pass through, & then they swarmed
around, yelling & waving their old guns. The bus could only stop. No one thought of
resisting. Bandits were accepted as thunderbolts from heaven & every man yielded
himself to what seemed inevitable-every man, that is, except Big Tooth. The hearty
young men climbed into the bus & all stood except Big Tooth. Since each passenger
had known privately that he was going to the Fair, it was only natural that all had some
extra money on their persons. The bandits went down the crowded aisle, pushed into
each pocket & felt all the trousers & sleeves, except those of the women, from whom
they took only their rings.
Behind all who were standing was Big Tooth, still sitting. The bandits could not see him,
for the others unwillingly shielded him, until they came upon him at the end of the best
seat.

‘Here is a fat man!’ they roared. ‘Up with you, Elder Brother!’
Big Tooth did not rise. He showed his great white teeth at them.

‘Keep your hands off my person,’ he said in a majestic voice. ‘I am the tax collector, I
represent the nation.’

While he said these words he reached into his bosom & brought out a folded sheet of
paper, & this he opened before them. Upon it was a sign, some names, & a great seal.
‘Here in my authority,’ he said. ‘My person is sacred.’

Had the elder leaders been with these young bandits they might not have been afraid of
Big Tooth. But the younger bandits knew that ‘nation’ meant ‘government’ &
‘government’ meant soldiers, & perhaps the destruction of their comfortable lair. Their
elders were continually preaching to them about keeping out of trouble with the
government.

‘It never pays to arouse the government,’ their elders preached. ‘Be polite to officials,
never rob them; pay out money to them freely in order to live in peace. Besides, we can
always get it back again.’

So now they bowed to Big Tooth. ‘Excuse me, sir,’ the young leader said. ‘We are so
ignorant,’ & with this he turned & shouted to his men to get off the bus.

But Big Tooth was made bolder than ever by this success. He swelled himself up, &
glanced around at the staring eyes of the robbed & helpless people in the bus. Then he
roared at the young bandit leader.

‘Do not think you can escape the law so easily,’ he bellowed. ‘I tell you, I am the tax
collector!’

His voice halted all of those young men as they stood on the road.
‘What do you want of us?’ their leader faltered.

9
‘You have just done business,’ Big Tooth declared sternly. ‘It is your trade & you have
made a profit. Upon that profit I claim a just tax.’
‘A tax?’ faltered the young bandit leader.
‘One-third,’ Big Tooth announced, & held out his hand.

Those who watched could not believe what they saw. But what they saw was plain
enough. The young bandits hurriedly cast up all the money they had taken from them &
divided it into three piles there on the lonely road, & one of them was put into Big
Tooth’s outstretched hands.

This gain Big Tooth stowed in his huge inner pocket, which hung like an apron over his
belly.

‘Now you may go,’ he said. ‘I will report to the nation that you are honest bandits & have
paid your taxes.’
‘Thank you Elder Brother,’ the bandits said feebly.

Big Tooth went back to his seat, brushing everybody aside as he went, & behind him
the young bandit leader looked at his fellow. ‘ Did we rob them, or did that big-toothed
fellow rob us?’ he asked in a puzzled voice. None of the other bandits could answer.
They stood shaking their heads, their eyes dazed, & then they turned back to the
mountain, resolved to say nothing to their elders, But only to report what money they
had left.

In the bus, however, the citizens of Wang’s Corners knew perfectly what had happened.
They had been robbed & a third of their loss was in Big Tooth’s great pocket. They sat
down while the bus went on its rocky way, & to all that had happened was now added
this final outrage. They turned & stared at Big Tooth, & Big Tooth stared impudently
back at them, without a word. Under his dirty gray silk gown was their money, but he
had taken it as his, & the law, he would have said, was on his side.

Each man in himself turned over what could be done. Then, as one man, they rose &
surged upon Big Tooth. Ahead of them, & who did not know it, was the great Dragon
Gorge, where the precipice rolled down a thousand feet into a deep river. The bus driver
drove on, not turning his head, & the women looked away. Between them & the end of
the bus where Big Tooth had chosen to sit so that he might not be hot, there was a
crowd of men. What went on who could know? A dozen girdles were loosened, hands
covered the mouth with its big tooth, hands pinched the nostrils & bent the head. Big
Tooth felt himself tied in the twinkling of a goddess’s eyelash, knees to chin, hands
under the knees, head bent back, & a thick girdle of cloth between his teeth. Hands
emptied his pocket bag. The next instant he was rolling down the mountainside,
bouncing like a ball from rock to rock. The Great Dragon Pool lay at the bottom, the
bottomless pool, in which no man dared to swim or to fish, even on the hottest day. He
clove the waters & went on into the abyss.

In the bus the men counted out their money. Each took a third of what he had brought,
& put it back into his own pocket, & a third of what he had was given to the driver. He
did not turn his head for the bus was late, & while time did not matter to anyone, it was a
matter of pride for the driver to be at the Li Family Village before noon. Besides, he was
young & always hungry.

10
It was a successful Fair, & nearly everybody had a good time. Old Li wandered
mournfully about the streets, but of all the citizens of Wang’s Corners none said
anything to him, except Mr. Ying, who was kinder than the rest & perhaps a little more
brave.
‘As to the matter spoken of yesterday,’ he said to Old Li, ‘give it no more thought. The
gods take care of such things.’

Old Li thanked him without being reassured, since the gods had failed him too often for
him to have any confidence in their good sense or even in their kindness.

But as time went on he had to acknowledge that for once he had been mistaken. No
one ever saw or heard of Big Tooth again. After a while there came rumors that bandits
had tumbled him over the precipice, but who dared to go down into the abode of
dragons to see?

Mrs. Big Tooth waited for him faithfully for a whole month, then she sold the house &
became a nun to the little goddess in the crypt, & kept her shined & polished as if every
day were a feast day. Liehsa married a year later. As it happened, she married the
young bus driver, who told her the truth about Big Tooth Wang when they were admiring
their first-born son. They had first met, simply enough, because the bus broke down one
day & the Old Li’s house was the nearest one. It was pure chance, for the bus always
broke down two or three times on each trip. Liehsa had made tea for the passengers
while they waited for the driver to mend the engine, but she & that driver had fallen in
love at first sight. The goddess of course could have had nothing to do with this, except
that Mrs. Big Tooth Wang, now the nun called Snow Purity, prayed often that the young
girl could find a really good husband & have a son.

This son was born promptly ten months after their marriage, & it was while admiring his
perfection one warm summer evening, when Liehsa was bathing him by pouring cool
water over his fat, naked body, that the young bus driver felt compelled to tell his wife
just what had happened.

Liehsa paused in the delightful rite she was performing. ‘Was that what became of the
old devil?’ she exclaimed.
‘I couldn’t stop the bus,’ he said.
‘Of course not,’ she agreed.
They fell silent, contemplating the end of evil men. Then Liehas began her work again,
& they watched the clear water coursing down the beautiful small brown body they had
made.

The child, feeling the water running down his body, laughed, & they laughed with him.
‘What has happened is heaven’s will,’ Liehsa said cheerfully.
‘Entirely,’ the young bus driver said, looking at his son.

11