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America’s Last Emperor: Rice
Chapter Nine
November 22, 1851
Norton looked around at his guests at the large round table in the newly rebuilt dining room at Macao and Woosung, and then back at the large bowl of rice on the table nearest him. The ubiquity of the grain obsessed him, and he struggled to think of an analogue from growing up. Potatoes were surely a good example, but could you make flour from potatoes? The versatility of the grain caught his imagination in idle moments like these. Suddenly he realized it was not such an idle moment after all. This was his second annual Arrival Thanksgiving, as he started to call it in the past month when making his personal invitations.
He saved a chair for Tom Sawyer, but the man had left for parts unknown a month earlier. Eastland sat at his right hand today, and he was pleased to see that Mr. Hitchcock had brought his family. His precocious daughter was talking to everyone who would listen about the Empire company fire engine, which evidently was the shiniest thing she had ever seen. Everyone was on their best behavior with women in attendance.
Sam Brannan had declined — Norton later found out that he had sailed for Hawaii with a detachment of armed men to try to establish a colony. Norton reflected that this sounded exactly like something Sam Brannan would do. Others from the Vigilance Committee had…
