The Paper Daughters of Chinatown - Heather B. Moore Page 0,119
college in San Francisco. “It would have to be back east.”
“I know,” Tien whispered.
And in that whisper, Dolly understood the hesitancy in her friend’s voice. They would be separated for years. Tien, who had known only the mission home since she was a young girl, would be going into another world—possibly in two to three years, when she was eighteen or nineteen.
Dolly smiled, although emotion had started to surface. “I believe you’ll be wonderful in college. And if you return here, we’ll be happy to have you. But if another opportunity were to arise with your new education, we would support that as well.”
Tien’s gaze turned fierce. “I won’t be like Charles. I will come back, Lo Mo. This is my home.”
This Chinese young woman was years away from that decision, but Dolly knew that if anyone could make a promise about the future, it was Tien.
“Now, you are tired,” Tien said. “You sleep as long as you want and I will take care of things until you awake.”
Dolly didn’t know how she had been so blessed in her life to have so many who cared about her. She moved forward and embraced Tien. “It is so good to be back, and I can’t thank you enough for all your help.”
“It’s easy to help people who are grateful,” Tien said.
Over the next few weeks, Dolly slept in snatches as she spent hours catching up with all that she had missed, reacquainting herself with her daughters, and working hand in hand with the staff. Frances had been right. The mission home was often put on the defense, and Dolly spent a good deal of her time preparing for court cases, then testifying on behalf of the newer residents of 920. They also kept the doors and lower windows securely locked, and they stayed vigilant on who was allowed to enter the mission home.
Following each rescue, the Chinatown squad would patrol the neighborhood for several nights and days.
She continued to work with her lawyer, Henry Monroe, who aided her in many cases. The girls at the mission home called him “our Abraham Lincoln,” and it was fitting. Monroe aided Dolly in proposing an amendment to state law that would empower a judge to assign her temporary guardianship of a child until the hearing. When the bill reached the governor, he vetoed it.
Dolly was devastated when Monroe called with the news.
“What do you want to do, Miss Cameron?” he asked next.
She gripped the receiver, trying to hold her emotions together. “I don’t know.”
“We can make a few adjustments and resubmit.”
Dolly found herself smiling. “What are you waiting for? My permission?”
Monroe chuckled.
A few weeks later, Monroe called with the astounding news. “My presentation with the legislature went quite well.”
Again, Dolly gripped the receiver she held. “How well?”
“Governor Pardee signed the bill this afternoon.”
Dolly might have shouted into the phone, and by the time she hung up with the lawyer, he was still laughing. By all accounts, this was a major victory because now she could offer more protection and not worry about being arrested for being in contempt of court. Not only did the rescue of Chinese girls continue, but the highbinders had brought over Japanese girls as well as other nationalities, peddling their same old lies to desperate women and families.
But when a typewritten note arrived one evening at the mission home, and Dolly saw the plea for help along with the address off Commercial Street, she prepared herself for the worst. It was the same location where Mei Lien had been taken after her arrival in San Francisco. The same brothel where the slave mistress Ah-Peen Oie lived. There was a good chance that Zhang Wei would be there.
“Tien,” Dolly said, knocking on her bedroom door, then opening it.
The young woman rarely locked her door anymore, and now she was sitting on her bed cross-legged, with English textbooks spread about her. When she saw the paper in Dolly’s hand, she immediately scrambled off the bed.
“Where is it?”
“Commercial Street,” Dolly said.
“Oh no,” Tien said, knowing the significance of the location. “Should we tell Mei Lien?”
“Not yet,” Dolly said. “But she might know whoever it is that is asking for a rescue. They probably both worked under Ah-Peen Oie.” Which also meant that the girl would be severely traumatized.
“We will need several policemen,” Tien said, grabbing the oversized jacket that she wore on rescues. Often she transferred it to the shoulders of the starving, shivering slave girl.