Precious MaMa,
Saturday New Gold Mountain bustles and swells. It smells of raw lumber and horse droppings. Rain turns the streets to mud, and carts get stuck. There are now two hotels, two bars, a grocery, and a chemist.
By Bush Creek we have China Town. Gold is slow to trickle in. There are only twenty of us left. We burrow like rabbits. Sometimes boys from town come, throw rocks, call us bad names, and steal. They broke my crane-with-spread-wings rice bowl, and with it my heart.
Autumn Loo grabbed his shovel and chased them. He is a bent man, sixty years old, and he came back sobbing.
Our friend Kong Kai, blind in one eye, has been missing for three moons. We searched Eight Mile Creek where he has a cave in the ledge above the creek. Only his skeleton, picked clean by birds and rats. He was not murdered because he had seventy pounds in his pocket.
I sent the money to his MaMa. I can only send to you my token of love and esteem.
Faithful First Son,
Wing Lun