Chapter Summary:
The chapter starts when Tien Pao’s parents leave him alone
in the sampan, though they promised they will take Tien Pao with them for work.
Tien Pao was bored until he saw an extremely funny thing. Some water buffalos
were playing in the river in a funny way. This made Tien Pao laugh for a very
long time until he shouted when the buffalos were distracted.
Then life was boring as usual for Tien Pao. Nothing
significant happened for a long time which made him and his pig force to sleep.
It was raining heavily outside and it raised the river. The sampan was slipped
out of the river bank and went inside the river. The current in the river was
so strong that it made the sampan move away from their bank.
Tien Pao felt awkward when he woke up and it was dark
everywhere. It was night and he was scared that the river current will force the
sampan to go towards the Japanese. He woke up his pig and started to call him
by his sister’s name which made him feel safe, until he realised his
foolishness and named it Glory-of-the-republic. It was still raining and his
ducklings were playing with the water in the dishpan. When Tien Pao saw what
the ducklings were doing, he also so that his only food rice was soaked with
water. Then, he went to sleep starving and wet.
When it was morning, Tien Pao saw that the river was three
times longer than of Hengyang. He also saw a village which gave him the
impression that this was his village. But his village was already burned. Then
he closely looked that there was a Japanese soldier guarding which made him so
scared that he didn’t move for a long time.
After few hours, the sampan reached a bank. Tien Pao took
Glory-of-the-Republic with him towards the bank abandoning his three ducklings
and his sampan.