All In Read Online Free PDF

narrow window in the spring, which was long past. The grasshoppers had consumed all of our rice for the year.
    Later that night, my father had to break the news to my mother. It had to be the hardest thing he had ever done.
    Other villagers came to our house and pointed at him, demanding, “What are we going to do now?”
    My father wasn’t just a farmer. He was also the chief elder and pastor of our village. Unlike in most Hmong villages, all but two families in ours were Christians. My father wasn’t the only one wondering why God had allowed this to happen.
    As the men asked my father what to do, the women wailed. Hmong people make a certain cry after a death. Even though no one had died, I heard the sound that night and it terrified me. My imagination was probably running away with me, but I felt extra hungry as I tried to go to sleep.
    The next day, no one cried. No one asked my father what to do. Dwelling on how our rice crop had flown away in the bellies of thousands of grasshoppers wouldn’t give us anything to eat.
    Within a matter of weeks, our rice supplies ran low. My father responded by spending more and more time hunting in the jungle. We ate whatever he killed and brought home. I remember eating everything from deer, wild boar, and game birds to monkeys, gophers, porcupines, and even rats. When you’re hungry, you eat what you can find.
    My father also continued to show my brothers and me how to find edible roots and leaves in the jungle. The days we stumbled across bamboo shoots were the best.
    By not panicking but doing what had to be done, my father taught me a valuable lesson. I learned to never give up, to never lose hope, to never allow my circumstances to rule me. This positive perspective would give me strength in the years ahead.
    The difficulty of life in Laos didn’t stop me from finding ways to have fun. And my idea of fun almost always involved mischief. I’d never heard of Mark Twain, but I was the Hmong Tom Sawyer. Other kids contented themselves with kicking around an inflated pig bladder that passed for a ball. I enjoyed that as much as they did, but I also liked climbing high up in a tree and—how do I put this delicately?—relieving myself on the unsuspecting people below.
    Since my father was the village leader and pastor, the victims of my pranks yelled and screamed not only at me but also at my father, a man who should have been able to control his wild son. At least that’s what they told him, and that’s what he told me as I bent over for the regular spankings I knew I deserved.
    No matter how hard my father tried, lectures and spankingscould not drive the Tom Sawyer out of me. I simply had too many ideas of fun and exciting things to try, and my small gang of friends was always eager to do whatever I suggested. None of them ever stopped and asked, “Hey, Xao, do you really think that is such a good idea?” I wish they had.
    One Saturday afternoon, when most of the people of my village were off working on their various farms, my buddies and I carried out the single worst idea I’d ever had.
    For some odd reason, I thought it would be fun to get some big sticks, climb up into the community chicken coop, and smash all the eggs we could find. For a boy who was always hungry, smashing eggs was a foolish thing to do. Unfortunately, my seven-year-old brain didn’t think that far ahead.
    I was the first one to climb into the coop, stick in hand. The chickens barely stirred when I stepped in and hardly knew what to do when my stick came down with a loud pop! on the eggs in the first unattended nest. Pop! Another egg. Then another. And another. My buddies joined in, and eggs popped everywhere.
    Soon the chickens caught on that something was amiss, which sent them all squawking and flying around the coop. From time to time, I had to shove a stubborn hen off her nest, then— pop! pop! pop! —the eggs burst. Yolks, feathers, and