In the windows were parcels of shirts, tied with white string, with
little slips of paper under the string. These slips of paper were
colored like the petunias in Mother's garden, and on them were funny
black letters that looked like chicken-, and rabbit-, and fox-tracks,
all mixed up.

Inside the store three little men were ironing, ironing away on boards
covered with sheets, and jabbering in a strange language. And they
wore clothes that were as strange as the words they spoke--clothes
that looked like pajamas with dark blue tops and light blue trousers.
And each of the little men had a yellow face, slant eyes, and a black
pigtail.

It was Saturday, and a group of town-boys stood around the door,
gazing in at the three strange little men and mocking them:--

"Ching, ching Chinaman,
Bow, wow, wow!"

Then one of the boys would shout in through the door,--"Bin eatin' any
ole stewed rats, Chinky?" and another would ask,--"Give us a taste of
yer bird's-nest pudding?" They thought they were very smart, and that
wasn't all, for, after calling the Chinamen all the names they could
think of, the boys reached down into the ditch, which some men were
digging for a sewer, and scooped up handfuls of mud and threw it
straight into the laundry and all over the snow-white shirts the
little men were ironing; at which, the Chinamen grew very angry and
came to the door, shaking their flat-irons in their hands and
calling,--