Page:Chinese Fables and Folk Stories.djvu/56

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52
CHINESE FABLES AND FOLK STORIES

her sleeping child and ran to the house where the dead baby lay. She was brave and went into the dark empty room, and no one saw her. She never thought or cared about the bad luck it might bring, nor of herself in any way. She thought only of the great sorrow of the dead child's mother.

The still body lay on the floor; she took off its clothes and put them on her own baby, and she waited until he had had milk and slept again; then she laid him on the floor and took the body of the dead child and went out into the great forest, where she left it.

She then went back to her cousin with a happy smiling face and said, "Woo-Liu-Mai, I wish you would come with me to your home."

"No," said Woo-Liu-Mai sadly, "I will go to-morrow and bury my child. I will stay here until then."

"But you can not wait until to-morrow. Come with me now. The gods told me in a dream last night that your child would live again. Kwoh-King may now be crying for milk. Come, go now."

But Woo-Liu-Mai said, "No, it can not be. You tell me what is not true. I go to-morrow to bury my dead."

Just then word came from the mother-in-law, "Your child is alive. Come home."

Woo-Liu-Mai went home and saw the child sitting