Chapter III

The winter rains were over: the spring had come to California, flushing the hills with green and causing an ever-changing pageant of flowers to pass over them. But there was no spring in Lae Choo’s heart, for the Little One remained away from her arms. He was being kept in a mission. White women were caring for him, and though for one full moon he had pined for his mother and refused to be comforted he was now apparently happy and contented. Five moons or five months had gone by since the day he had passed with Lae Choo through the Golden Gate; but the great Government at Washington still delayed sending the answer which would return him to his parents.

* * * * *

Hom Hing was disconsolately rolling up and down the balls in his abacus box when a keen-faced young man stepped into his store.

“What news?” asked the Chinese merchant.

“This!” The young man brought forth a typewritten letter. Hom Hing read the words:

“Re Chinese child, alleged to be the son of Hom Hing, Chinese merchant, doing business at 425 Clay street, San Francisco.

“Same will have attention as soon as possible.”

Hom Hing returned the letter, and without a word continued his manipulation of the counting machine.

“Have you anything to say?” asked the young man.

“Nothing. They have sent the same letter fifteen times before. Have you not yourself showed it to me?”

“True!” The young man eyed the Chinese merchant furtively. He had a proposition to make and he was pondering whether or not the time was opportune.

“How is your wife?” he inquired solicitously—and diplomatically.

Hom Hing shook his head mournfully.

“She seems less every day,” he replied. “Her food she takes only when I bid her and her tears fall continually. She finds no pleasure in dress or flowers and cares not to see her friends. Her eyes stare all night. I think before another moon she will pass into the land of spirits.”

“No!” exclaimed the young man, genuinely startled.

“If the boy not come home I lose my wife sure,” continued Hom Hing with bitter sadness.

“It’s not right,” cried the young man indignantly. Then he made his proposition.

The Chinese father’s eyes brightened exceedingly.

“Will I like you to go to Washington and make them give you the paper to restore my son?” cried he. “How can you ask when you know my heart’s desire?”

“Then,” said the young fellow, “I will start next week. I am anxious to see this thing through if only for the sake of your wife’s peace of mind.”

“I will call her. To hear what you think to do will make her glad,” said Hom Hing.

He called a message to Lae Choo upstairs through a tube in the wall.

In a few moments she appeared, listless, wan, and hollow-eyed; but when her husband told her the young lawyer’s suggestion she became as one electrified; her form straightened, her eyes glistened; the color flushed to her cheeks.

“Oh,” she cried, turning to James Clancy, “You are a hundred man good!”

The young man felt somewhat embarrassed; his eyes shifted a little under the intense gaze of the Chinese mother.

“Well, we must get your boy for you,” he responded. “Of course”—turning to Hom Hing—“it will cost a little money. You can’t get fellows to hurry the Government for you without gold in your pocket.”

Hom Hing stared blankly for a moment. Then: “How much do you want, Mr. Clancy?” he asked quietly.

“Well, I will need at least five hundred to start with.”

Hom Hing cleared his throat.

“I think I told to you the time I last paid you for writing letters for me and seeing the Custom boss here that nearly all I had was gone!”

“Oh, well then we won’t talk about it, old fellow. It won’t harm the boy to stay where he is, and your wife may get over it all right.”

“What that you say?” quavered Lae Choo.

James Clancy looked out of the window.

“He says,” explained Hom Hing in English, “that to get our boy we have to have much money.”

“Money! Oh, yes.”

Lae Choo nodded her head.

“I have not got the money to give him.”

For a moment Lae Choo gazed wonderingly from one face to the other; then, comprehension dawning upon her, with swift anger, pointing to the lawyer, she cried: “You not one hundred man good; you just common white man.”

“Yes, ma’am,” returned James Clancy, bowing and smiling ironically.

Hom Hing pushed his wife behind him and addressed the lawyer again: “I might try,” said he, “to raise something; but five hundred—it is not possible.”

“What about four?”

“I tell you I have next to nothing left and my friends are not rich.”

“Very well!”

The lawyer moved leisurely toward the door, pausing on its threshold to light a cigarette.

“Stop, white man; white man, stop!”

Lae Choo, panting and terrified, had started forward and now stood beside him, clutching his sleeve excitedly.

“You say you can go to get paper to bring my Little One to me if Hom Hing give you five hundred dollars?”

The lawyer nodded carelessly; his eyes were intent upon the cigarette which would not take the fire from the match.

“Then you go get paper. If Hom Hing not can give you five hundred dollars—I give you perhaps what more that much.”

She slipped a heavy gold bracelet from her wrist and held it out to the man. Mechanically he took it.

“I go get more!”

She scurried away, disappearing behind the door through which she had come.

“Oh, look here, I can’t accept this,” said James Clancy, walking back to Hom Hing and laying down the bracelet before him.

“It’s all right,” said Hom Hing, seriously, “pure China gold. My wife’s parent give it to her when we married.”

“But I can’t take it anyway,” protested the young man.

“It is all same as money. And you want money to go to Washington,” replied Hom Hing in a matter of fact manner.

“See, my jade earrings—my gold buttons—my hairpins—my comb of pearl and my rings—one, two, three, four, five rings; very good—very good—all same much money. I give them all to you. You take and bring me paper for my Little One.”

Lae Choo piled up her jewels before the lawyer.

Hom Hing laid a restraining hand upon her shoulder. “Not all, my wife,” he said in Chinese. He selected a ring—his gift to Lae Choo when she dreamed of the tree with the red flower. The rest of the jewels he pushed toward the white man.

“Take them and sell them,” said he. “They will pay your fare to Washington and bring you back with the paper.”

For one moment James Clancy hesitated. He was not a sentimental man; but something within him arose against accepting such payment for his services.

“They are good, good,” pleadingly asserted Lae Choo, seeing his hesitation.

Whereupon he seized the jewels, thrust them into his coat pocket, and walked rapidly away from the store.