She was all amazement. Then she began to laugh and to shake her head over the ingenuity of it all, while he stood looking up to her, his eyes bright and bold with victory.
"You are a clever boy," she said, "but make sure that you don't go near the hen-house often. Your father's pocket is empty again, and he's looking around to see whose money he can get hold of, that devil."
Ah Bah earned twenty cents helping Ah Lau Sim to scrape coconut, and his mother allowed him to have the ten cents he found on a shelf, under a comb. Clutching his money, he stole out of the house; he was just in time to back out of the hen-house, straighten himself and pretend to be looking for dried twigs for firewood, for his father stood at the doorway looking at him. His father was in restless mood again. Pacing the floor with a dark look on his face, and this was the sign that he wanted beer very badly but had no money to pay for it. Ah Bah bent low, assiduously looking for firewood, and then through the corner of his eye, he saw his father go back into the house.
That night, Ah Bah dreamt that his father had found out the hiding place in the hen-house, and early the next morning, his heart beating wildly, he stole out and went straight to the hen-house. He felt about the darkness for his cigarette tin; his hand touched the damp of the hen droppings and caught on a nail, and still he searched - but the cigarette tin was not there.
He ran sniffling to his mother, and she began to scold him," I told you not to go there so often, but you wouldn't listen to me. Didn't you know your father has been asking for money? That devil's found you out again!"
The boy continued to sniff, his little heart aching with the terrible pain of the loss.
"Never mind," his mother said, " you be a good boy and don't say anything about it; otherwise your father's sure to rage like a mad man."
She was glad when he quietened down at last, for she didn't want to keep Ah Lam Soh and the others waiting. The seventeen dollars and fifty-five cents was secure in her blouse pocket.......
--------------------------THE END-------------------------
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