The Song of the Family includes all of the noises incorporated with his family preparing for their day. He hears his wife Juana making breakfast, and this is the rhythm of the song.

So, there are at least five songs mentioned in the story:

• The Song of the Family and its variations.
• The Song of Evil.
• The Song of the Undersea.
• The Song of the Pearl That Might Be.
• The Song of the Enemy (which appears to be a variation of the Song of Evil).

The songs represent feelings and thoughts that Kino and his family have at different times in their life. These songs are a tradition passed down from generation to generation in his culture. Song of the Pearl That Might Be – each oyster that Kino opens might contain a pearl that could change his family’s life.

The doctor comes to Kino’s hut to care for Coyotito, pretending that he’d been out when they came to see him earlier. Despite Coyotito’s improvement, the doctor insists that he might still be infected with the poison.

Why did the doctor refuse to treat Coyotito? The doctor refuses to treat Coyotito because Kino and Juana are poor and they didn’t have enough money to pay him, but instead offer him eight pearls. He has no interest in Kino’s people, but rather to make money and disregard human lives.

Kino finds a very large oyster apart from the others that excites them. When they open it, they find a perfectly shaped silver pearl as big as a ‘sea-gull’s egg’. When Juana removes the seaweed, she finds that it has pulled the poison out of Coyotito’s body.

Juana understands that realistically, they needed the money to save Coyotito, by also realized that money could help solve their other problems, so she prayed for the finding of a pearl to solve all of these issues at once.