and they had said they were going for a walk, so why not he?
He knew his mo chun was very busy, embroidering a blouse for him to wear on the New Year, and the San Nin (New Year) would be here to-morrow. So he thought in his baby way that he would take advantage of his mama, and only walk down the street a little way, and she would never know. He was too small to realize that it is a very difficult matter for even grown-up persons to find their way through the narrow and tortuous streets of the big Chinatown of San Francisco. He could not be expected to know these things.
So he wandered on, and soon forgot his fear in watching the beautiful things all around him. Chinatown was in holiday attire, and as far as the eye could reach the narrow streets were a perfect mass of bloom and beauty. On both sides of the streets were ranged great stands of the China lily and fragrant almond blossom, with delicate shades of pink.
Someway he found it very hard to get past the store windows, as they seemed to have so many things in them that boys like, and he forgot everything in the delight of gazing at them, and pressed his eager little round face right up against the glass in some places, and poked his cunning little nose into a fragrant bunch of lilies, to inhale their sweetness. Mo chun had some lilies at home, but not so many nor such beautiful ones as these. At every door were strange Chinese letters, and he looked longingly at great bunches of peacock feathers with their many eyes, and the gaudy rosettes of red paper which are everywhere on the New Year. Almost every one that he met carried a brown paper parcel of pork and an onion, or some kind of funny looking lettuce, for the Chinese love pork better than the Americans love turkey, and it had to be a very poor person indeed who did not feel able to buy himself a piece of pork on the New Year.
Chinamen of all kinds were thronging the streets, and so many children, too, were toddling along with some older person, that no one noticed that the little boy was alone.
He believed he had only to walk back just a little way and he would be at home. He did not know that he had made several turns, and that it would be impossible for him to find his way back alone.
Naughty little Sing Ho! There were so many American people, too, in the shops, buying curious and beautiful things. On both sides of the street were rows of great dragon lanterns. He looked at them in childish wonder, longing for the great swaying globes. Suddenly he felt something hit him on the arm, and, looking upward, saw far above him some beautiful Chinese ladies on a balcony; and what is this that they have thrown down? Something very near to the heart of a boy,—a bright bunch of fire-crackers!
He was smiling now without any difficulty. Just then he heard a woman’s shrill, high-pitched voice speaking to him from the latticed window above him, saying: “Little boy! little boy! where is your mo chun?”
“She at home,” he replied, and then hesitatingly faltered, “Ngo pa ngo tong cho lu lok” (I am afraid I have lost my way).