At home the little mother was getting very uneasy. What could keep them so long? “Cheung kan ye lok” (it is getting very late), she said. Oh, why had she ever let her go? To think of her pao chu (precious pearl) being out on the big ocean at night. She imagined all sorts of horrible things, and blamed herself. Perhaps she had not set enough food before the joss, nor burned enough incense. She had the tea all nice and hot, and knew if nothing had happened they would be very hungry when they reached home. So she lighted more punks before the god, and had already sung the baby’s little Chinese song:
“My little baby—little boy blue—
Is as sweet as sugar and cinnamon too;
Isn’t this precious darling of ours
Sweeter than dates and cinnamon flowers?”
He now lay asleep on his couch, and she was all alone.
After what seemed an age to her she heard the sound of a boat being dragged upon the sand, and ran to the door of the hut, and stood there looking out upon the beach. “Lo Luen! Lo Luen!” she called out in the darkness, “Yap loi le!” (come in!) and there was a rush of sandalled feet, and in just a moment two cold brown hands were clasped in her warm ones, and a dear little cold nose was pressed against her face. “Lo Luen, precious pearl, you have come back, and the joss is good,” she said.
After the fish were put away ho chun came in, and everything was peace and happiness again. The warm room seemed more welcome than ever before, for they were benumbed with cold, and oh, so hungry! Mo chun, with all gentleness and love, soon had them seated, with bowls of steaming rice before them, and fried fish, and other good things which she had prepared in their absence.
After supper Lo Luen happened to think of the mysterious bundle of seaweed, and ho chun went out and brought it in. It was very wet, and smelled of the sea.
“I guess it’s only a piece of wood with kelp on,” said mo chun; but anyway, they tore the wet seaweed from it, while Lo Luen looked eagerly on. What could that be sticking out of the weed? It looked—it actually looked like a doll’s foot. It couldn’t be, and yet—With a great cry of joy Lo Luen saw her father uncover the treasure. All the pent-up feeling of starved child-life was in her cry, for there, disclosed to her dancing, oblique eyes was a doll—a real one, and a very beautiful one. She could not believe it at first, but rubbed her eyes. They were all astonished, for this was indeed an event in their barren lives.
The doll opened her eyes as if she were alive, and seemed to gaze at them in gratitude for being saved from the cruel water. Lo Luen hugged it to her wildly beating heart and her face beamed with a rapturous joy the like of which had never before come to her. She was such a little mother, always, and now she would have something upon which to shower all the wealth of love repressed in her warm little heart.
They did not attempt to solve the mystery. To them it was enough that this beautiful toy had been sent to them from the waters. It may have been that the doll was lost in some shipwreck, or that some of the little maidens at Del Monte had left it too near the water, and the waves had carried it away. It belonged now to the little Chinese fisher-maiden, and that was enough to know.
She slept that night with the precious doll in her arms—dear little Lo Luen!