He entered the great iron door, and had reached the top of the marble stairway, his heart beating with fear. He almost wished now he had not gone. The silence was so intense that he could almost hear his heart beat--he feared the worst. But now he heard a rustle of silken garments, and there came through the portieres--his mother!
With wide-open black eyes he gazed at her. Oh, what would she do? what would she say?--he stood trembling and speechless; and she?--Why, she was just a mother, after all, and with one great sob she took him in her arms and showered kisses on his handsome but very dirty face. He could feel her tender heart beating through the silken blouse, and she clasped him closer as she murmured: “The good joss has brought him back to me--my brave and beautiful little Ho.”
And he whispered, “Mother--forgive me! but it was all so lovely, and--I just _love_ the Fourth of July!”
Lo Luen was the little daughter of a poor Chinese fisherman, and lived in the Chinatown of Monterey, California. She was born in this beautiful country, and did not know anything about China, except what she had heard her parents say. But this country was good enough for her, she thought, with its endless skies of blue overhead, and the big noisy ocean dashing its white spray up on the silver sands right in front of the little hut she called home.
It was a very poor place, and they were very poor people, but Lo Luen did not know this, because it was all she had ever known, so it did not disturb her simple celestial mind in the least. Then she could not get lonely, for there was her small brother, Lo Duck, who was the cunningest, chubbiest little boy that she had ever seen.
_Mo chun_ was very busy always, in the little hut, as she was a cigarette-maker, and worked at this all the time she was not doing the cooking, and making the simple garments for the family.
The father dearly loved his children, and often called Lo Luen his little fisher-maiden. This was because she was such a help to him in his fishing. She and little Lo Duck would sit out on the ground in front of their home for hours at a time, putting bait on the hooks; and this was a great help, for it saved so much time.
He would cut up a great deal of fish into small bits, and put it in a box by the children, and they would fasten it on to the hundreds of hooks on the lines, and then the big round baskets would be all ready for _ho chun_ to cast the lines into the ocean, and draw out the beautiful fish. Lo Luen was very proud when she saw the fine fish in the boat every day, for she almost felt as if she herself had caught them, since she had put the bait on the hooks. One day she had been working so hard that her father looked at her, as she sat there in the sun with her sleeves rolled up, working away as if her life depended upon it, and he said to her: “Lo Luen, how you likee go out in big boat with _ho chun_?”