Part 20 (2/2)

For one moment Timoteo stood still and looked at Herbert. Then the Spanish boy turned and flew over the rocks. Leaping from one slippery foothold to another, he rushed toward the cliffs, up the cliff road, on to the cl.u.s.ters of Chinese huts that made a little fis.h.i.+ng-village by itself on the edge of the bay. Whatever Spanish or English vocabulary Timoteo used, he aroused two or three Chinamen to forsake their frames of drying fish and cease tossing over the other small fish that lay drying on the ground.

Seizing the long, heavy iron rods with which the Chinese were wont to go abalone-hunting, the three Celestials followed in Timoteo's wake toward the place where Herbert anxiously awaited rescue. There was much prying with the iron rods before the stone was finally tilted enough so that the drenched prisoner was released.

”My father pay you,” gratefully promised Herbert to the Chinamen, who nodded and plodded cheerfully back toward their tiny fis.h.i.+ng-village.

Herbert looked at Timoteo.

”I'm much obliged to you,” said Herbert. ”You were good to run for help.”

But now that Timoteo had seen the success of his helpers, an abashed silence seemed to have overtaken him. He did not answer. The silence lasted till the two boys reached the cliffs. Herbert grew uneasy.

His conscience accused him somewhat.

”Come to my house, Timoteo, and my father will give you something for helping me,” promised Herbert uneasily, as the boys climbed the cliffs.

Timoteo shook his head, but he did not look up.

”See here, Timoteo,” burst out Herbert, stopping on top of the cliffs, ”what's the matter? Do you hate me?”

Timoteo glanced up slowly. His dark eyes were full of appeal.

”You no talk to teacher any more about me?” he besought. ”You no tell her my father lazy, we no-'count folks?”

Timoteo's voice shook. He hurried on: ”I like teacher. I try be clean. I wash my hands, my face, all time. I do ver' good to the teacher. But my mother differ from your mother. Your mother give you nice clean s.h.i.+rt and clothes. My mother too poor. I try learn, read, spell. I grow like American boy.”

It was the appeal of a soul that looked from Timoteo's eyes. Herbert flushed.

”Why, you poor fellow, of course you try!” he answered heartily. ”I--I'm sorry if I've ever said anything to the teacher that made you feel badly, Timoteo. I won't do it again, and the other boys sha'n't, either! The teacher knows how hard you try. She said the other day that you were a good boy. Come on up to our house. Won't you?”

But Timoteo smiled, and shook his head, and went away on the long road that led toward home. The heart of the Spanish boy was very happy. He had done good to his enemy, and that enemy was turned into a friend. And the teacher had said that Timoteo was a good boy! She knew how hard he tried!

Timoteo sang for joy as he ran.

”I will learn! I will learn! I shall be like los Americanos!” he sang, and then he remembered how he had been tempted for one instant not to help Herbert. Timoteo s.h.i.+vered at the remembered temptation.

He sang again for very joy at having been helped to forgive his enemy.

In the pines Timoteo stopped, and looked upward through the swaying treetops.

”A Dios sea gloria por Jesu-Christo,” he murmured reverently. (”To G.o.d be glory through Jesus Christ.”)

THE VICTORY OF QUANG PO

Jo bent down and slipped under the barbed wire fence that separated the field back of the Chinese fis.h.i.+ng-village from the other fields that stretched away to the houses of the California seaside resort under the pines. The wind blew pleasantly in from the sparkling bay.

A large number of frames for drying fish stretched away to the back part of the Chinese field. A great net fifty feet long was spread out on the ground to dry. Jo looked at the wooden sinkers that were fastened along one side of the net and smiled. ”They're all on again,” he thought.

A line of flounders stretched above the narrow, crooked street of the fis.h.i.+ng-village. The flounders looked like queer clothes hung to dry on a clothes-line. There were crates of small fish, packed so that they stood on their heads. Underneath a table of drying fish lay a dead gopher.

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