And presently the doctor came and did his work and took
my last penny--my ten dollars which were the hard savings of nearly a
year and a half of labour and privation. Ah, if the law-makers had only
known there were plenty of doctors in the city glad of a chance to
vaccinate people for a dollar or two, they would never have put the price
up so high against a poor friendless Irish, or Italian, or Chinese pauper
fleeing to the good land to escape hunger and hard times.
AH SONG HI.
LETTER IV
SAN FRANCISCO, 18--.
DEAR CHING-FOO: I have been here about a month now, and am learning a
little of the language every day. My employer was disappointed in the
matter of hiring us out to service to the plantations in the far eastern
portion of this continent. His enterprise was a failure, and so he set
us all free, merely taking measures to secure to himself the repayment of
the passage money which he paid for us. We are to make this good to him
out of the first moneys we earn here. He says it is sixty dollars
apiece.
We were thus set free about two weeks after we reached here. We had been
massed together in some small houses up to that time, waiting. I walked
forth to seek my fortune.
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