“Poor little Thing, perhaps it has a Father and Mother.”
The Red Mullet remained quite quiet for a second or two, the shock had been so great, and then it darted away to its home in the ocean.
Etty and her sister went home too.
Sorrow was in the land; great sorrow, for there were poverty and sickness in nearly every house. Everything had gone wrong in that country for some time, and somehow things could not get right again; it was such a pity!
Etty and her sister walked hand in hand and bare-footed on the seashore, and it was nearly a year since they had let the Red Mullet free. The two little girls were looking out for that ship which never would come. Mother had told them that everything would come right when their ship came home, but it was such a long time coming. They began to fear that it had gone down to the bottom of the sea, and that things would never come right.
And what was to happen to them all? It was so hard to live, so very hard; food was so scarce and the hospitals were full to overflowing.
“I wonder,” said Etty suddenly, looking up into her sister’s face, “I wonder where that little pink fish is, that we found last year.” Wonder, indeed they would have wondered, if they could have seen the little pink fish at that moment. The Red Mullet, no longer a Red Mullet, but a beautiful mermaid, was under the waves only a few yards from the two children. In her hands she carried a strange-looking casket, which she brought nearer and nearer to the shore; then she gave it in charge of a friendly wave that washed it almost to the children’s naked feet.
“What can it be?” they said, and that is exactly what you would have said under the same circumstances. Then they pulled it to land and tried to open it. It was not very difficult and they soon succeeded.