Michael Smithies, the well-known scholar and eminent historian of 17th-century Siam, lives in northeast Thailand, near the village that he describes in these sketches of its inhabitants.
There is little Paja who, though largely abandoned by his parents, grows up with no complexes and no envy, sustained by a village society that has made him part of of a bigger family than his own.
Tong-maa has looked out for herself. She married well and can now wear an amount of gold (a sign of status in the village) when she goes about her business. She does not aspire to city life and her position in the village is assured.