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diff --git a/old/68577-0.txt b/old/68577-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 21b5548..0000000 --- a/old/68577-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,7559 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of The mother, by Pearl S. Buck - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: The mother - -Author: Pearl S. Buck - -Release Date: July 21, 2022 [eBook #68577] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Tim Lindell, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was - produced from images made available by the HathiTrust - Digital Library.) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MOTHER *** - - - - - -THE MOTHER - - - - -_By Pearl S. Buck_ - - THE MOTHER - - THE FIRST WIFE - AND OTHER STORIES - - SONS - - THE GOOD EARTH - - EAST WIND: WEST WIND - - ALL MEN ARE BROTHERS - [SHUI HU CHUAN] - TRANSLATED FROM THE CHINESE - - - - - THE - MOTHER - - _by Pearl S. Buck_ - - THE JOHN DAY COMPANY - - _New York_ - - - - - COPYRIGHT, 1934, BY PEARL S. BUCK - - - MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - FOR THE JOHN DAY COMPANY, INC., NEW YORK, - BY J. J. LITTLE & IVES COMPANY, NEW YORK - - - - -THE MOTHER - - - - -I - - -In the kitchen of the small thatched farmhouse the mother sat on a low -bamboo stool behind the earthen stove and fed grass deftly into the -hole where a fire burned beneath the iron cauldron. The blaze was but -just caught and she moved a twig here, a handful of leaves there, and -thrust in a fresh bit of the dried grass she had cut from the hillsides -last autumn. In the corner of the kitchen as near as she could creep to -the fire sat a very old and weazened woman, wrapped in a thick padded -coat of bright red cotton stuff, whose edges showed under a patched -coat of blue she wore over it. She was half blind with a sore disease -of the eyes, and this had well-nigh sealed her eyelids together. But -through the small slits left open she could see a great deal still, and -she watched the flare of the flames as they leaped and caught under -the strong and skillful hands of the mother. Now she said, her words -hissing softly through her sunken, toothless gums, “Be careful how you -feed the fire--there is only that one load--is it two?--and the spring -is but newly come and we have long to go before the grass is long -enough to cut and here I am as I am and I doubt I can ever go again -and pick a bit of fuel--a useless old crone now, who ought to die--” - -These last words the old woman said many times a day and every time she -said them she waited to hear the son’s wife speak as she now did, “Do -not say it, old mother! What would we do if we had not you to watch the -door while we are in the field and see that the little ones do not fall -into the pond?” - -The old mother coughed loudly at this and gasped out of the midst of -her coughing, “It is true--I do that--the door must be watched in these -evil times with thieves and robbers everywhere. If they came here, such -a screeching as I would raise, daughter! Well I mind it was not so when -I was young--no, then if you left a hoe out in the night it was there -at dawn and in summer we tied the beast to the door hasp outside and -there it stood again the next day and--” - -But the young mother although she laughed dutifully and called out, -“Did you, then, old mother!” did not hear the old woman, who talked -incessantly throughout the day. No, while the old cracked voice rambled -on the young mother thought of the fuel and wondered indeed if it would -last until this spring planting were finished when she could take time -to go out with her knife and cut small branches from trees and pick -up this bit and that. It was true that just outside the door of the -kitchen at the edge of the threshing-floor, which was also dooryard, -there were still two ricks of rice straw, neatly rounded and roofed -with hard packed clay to shield them from the damps of rains and snow. -But rice straw was too good to burn. Only city folk burned rice straw, -and she or her man would carry it into the city in great bundles upon -a pole and gain good silver for it. No, rice straw could not be burned -except in city houses. - -She fed the grass into the stove bit by bit, absorbed in the task, the -firelight falling on her face, a broad, strong face, full lips, and -darkly brown and red with wind and sun. Her black eyes were shining in -the light, very clear eyes, set straight beneath her brows. It was a -face not beautiful but passionate and good. One would say, here is a -quick-tempered woman but warm wife and mother and kind to an old woman -in her house. - -The old woman chattered on. She was alone all day except for the little -children since her son and son’s wife must labor on the land, and now -it seemed there were many things she had to tell this daughter-in-law -whom she loved. Her old wheezing voice went on, pausing to cough now -and again in the smoke which poured out of the stove. “I ever did say -that when a man is hungered and especially a young and hearty son -like mine, an egg stirred into noodles--” The old voice lifted itself -somewhat higher against the fretting of two children who clung to their -mother’s shoulders as she stooped to feed the fire. - -But the mother went steadily on with her task, her face quiet and in -repose. Yes, she was as quiet as though she did not hear the fretting -of the children, this boy and this girl, and as though she did not -hear the endless old voice. She was thinking that it was true she was -a little late tonight There was a deal to be done on the land in the -spring, and she had stayed to drop the last row of beans. These warm -days and these soft damp nights, filled with dew--one must make the -most of them, and so she had covered the last row. This very night life -would begin to stir in those dry beans. This thought gave her content. -Yes, that whole field would begin to stir with life tonight secretly -in the damp warm earth. The man was working there still, pressing the -earth tight over the rows with his bare feet. She had left him there -because over the fields came the voices of the children crying her -name, and she had hastened and come home. - -The children were standing hungrily at the kitchen door when she -reached there and they were both weeping, the boy gently and steadily, -his eyes tearless, and the little girl whimpering and chewing her fist. -The old woman sat listening to them serenely. She had coaxed them for -a time but now they were beyond her coaxing and would not be comforted -and so she let them be. But the mother said nothing to them. She went -swiftly to the stove, stooping to pick up a load of fuel as she went. -Yet this was sign enough. The boy ceased his howling and ran after her -with all the speed of his five years, and the girl came after as best -she could, being but three and a little less. - -Now the food in the cauldron was boiling and from under the wooden lid -clouds of fragrant steam began to creep forth. The old woman drew deep -breaths and champed her empty old jaws a little. Under the cauldron the -flames leaped high and beat against its iron bottom and finding no vent -they spread and flew out again, changing into dense smoke that poured -into the small room. The mother drew back and pulled the little girl -back also. But the acrid smoke had already caught the child and she -blinked and rubbed her eyes with her grimy fists and began to scream. -Then the mother rose in her quick firm way and she lifted the child and -set her outside the kitchen door, saying, “Stay there, small thing! -Ever the smoke hurts your eyes and ever you will thrust your head into -it just the same.” - -The old woman listened as she always did whenever her son’s wife spoke, -and she took it as a fresh theme for something to say herself. Now she -began, “Aye, and I always said that if I had not had to feed the fire -for so many years I would not be half blind now. Smoke it was that made -me be so blind as I am now and smoke--” - -But the mother did not hear the old voice. She heard the sound of the -little girl as she sat there flat upon the earth, screaming and rubbing -her eyes and essaying to open them. It was true the child’s eyes were -always red and sore. Yet if anyone said to the mother, “Has not your -child something amiss with her eyes?” the mother answered, “It is only -that she will thrust her head into the fiery smoke when I am burning -the grass in the oven.” - -But this crying did not move her as once it had. She was too busy now, -and children came thick and fast. When her first son had been born, she -could not bear to hear him cry at all. Then it had seemed to her that -when a child cried a mother ought to still it somehow and give it ease, -and so when the child wept she stopped whatever she did and gave him -her breast. Then the man grew angry because she stopped so often at her -share of the work, and he roared at her, “What--shall you do thus and -leave it all to me? Here be you, but just begun your bearing and for -these next twenty years shall you be suckling one or another, and am I -to bear this? You are no rich man’s wife who needs do naught but bear -and suckle and can hire the labor done!” - -She flew back at him then as ever she did, for they were both young and -full of temper and passion, and she cried at him, “And shall I not have -a little something for my pains? Do you go loaded many months to your -work as I must do, and do you have the pains of birth? No, when you -come home you rest, but when I go home there is the food to cook and a -child to care for and an old woman to coax and coddle and tend for this -and that--” - -So they quarreled heartily for a while and neither was the victor and -neither vanquished, they were so well matched. But still this one -quarrel did not need to last long; her breasts soon went dry, for she -conceived as easily as a sound and cleanly beast does. Even now was -her milk dry again, though one child she dropped too soon last summer -when she fell and caught herself upon the point of the plough.... Well, -children must make shift now as best they could, and if they wept they -must weep, and it was true that she could not run to give them suck, -and they must wait and suit their hunger to her coming. So she said, -but the truth was her heart was softer than her speech, and she still -made haste if her children called to her. - -When the cauldron boiled a while and the smoke was mingled with the -smell of the fragrant rice, she went and found a bowl and first she -poured it full for the old woman. She set it on the table in the larger -room where they all lived, and then she led her there, scarcely heeding -her gabbling voice, “--and if you mix pease with the rice it does -make such a fine full taste as ever was--” And the old woman seated -herself and seized the bowl in her two chill dry hands and fell silent, -suddenly trembling with greediness for the food, so that the water ran -from the corners of her wrinkled mouth, and she fretted, “Where is the -spoon--I cannot find my spoon--” - -The mother put the porcelain spoon into the fumbling old hand and she -went out and this time she found two small tin bowls and filled them -and she found two small pairs of bamboo chopsticks, and she took one -bowl to the girl first because she was still weeping and rubbing her -eyes. The child sat in the dust of the threshing-floor, and what with -her tears and what with her grimy fists, her face was caked with mud -and tears. Now the mother lifted her to her feet and wiped her face -somewhat with the palm of her rough dark hand, and then lifting the -edge of the patched coat the child wore, she wiped her eyes. But she -was gentle enough, for it was true the child’s eyes were red and tender -and the edges of the lids turned out and raw, and when the child turned -her head wincing and whimpering, the mother let be in pity, troubled -for the moment with the child’s pain. She set the bowl then upon a rude -and unpainted table that stood outside the door of the house and she -said to the child in her loud, kind voice, “Come--eat!” - -The girl went unsteadily and stood clinging to the table, her -red-rimmed eyes half closed against the piercing gold of the evening -sun, and then stretched her hands toward the bowl. The mother cried, -“Take heed--it is hot!” - -And the girl hesitated and began to blow her little shallow breaths -upon the food to cool it. But the mother continued to gaze upon her, -still troubled as she gazed, and she muttered to herself, “When he -takes that next load of rice straw to the city I will ask him to go to -a medicine shop and buy some balm for sore eyes.” - -Now the boy was complaining because she had not set his bowl down on -the table, too, and so she went and fetched it and set it down and for -a time there was silence. - -Then the mother felt herself too weary for a while even to eat and she -gave a great sigh and went and fetched the little bamboo stool and set -it by the door and sat down to rest. She drew in her breath deeply -and smoothed back her rough sun-browned hair with her two hands and -looked about her. The low hills that circled about this valley where -their land lay grew slowly black against a pale yellow sky, and in -the heart of this valley, in the small hamlet, fires were lit for the -evening meal and smoke began to rise languidly into the still windless -air. The mother watched it and was filled with content. Of the six or -seven houses which made up the hamlet there was not one, she thought -suddenly, in which the mother did better for her children than did she -for hers. Some there were who were richer; that wife of the innkeeper, -doubtless, had some silver and to spare, for she wore two silver rings -upon her hands and rings in her ears such as the young mother used to -long for in her girlhood and never had. Well, even so, she had liefer -see her own spare silver go into the good flesh the children wore -upon their bones. The gossip said the innkeeper gave his children but -the meats the guests left in their bowls. But the mother gave her own -children good rice that they grew upon their land, and if the girl’s -eyes were well there would be nothing wrong with them at all; sound and -well grown were they, and the boy big enough for seven or eight. Yes, -she had sound children always, and if that one had not come too soon, -and died when it had breathed but once, it would have been a fair boy -by now, too, and trying to walk soon. - -She sighed again. Well, here was this new one coming in a month or two, -and it was enough to think about. But she was glad. Yes, she was glad -and best content when she was big with child and when she was full with -life.... - -Someone came out of the door across the street of the little hamlet, -and out of the smoking doorway she could see her husband’s cousin’s -wife, and she called, “Ah, you are cooking, too! I am but just -finished!” - -“Yes--yes--” came the other’s voice, carelessly cheerful. “And I was -just saying, I dare swear you are finished, you are so forward with -your work.” - -But the mother called back loudly and courteously, “No--no--it is only -that my children grow hungry betimes!” - -“Truly a very able, forward woman!” cried the cousin’s wife again and -went within once more, carrying the grass she had come to fetch. The -mother sat on a while in the evening twilight, her face half smiling. -It was true she could rightly be proud, proud of her own strength, -proud of her children, proud of that man of hers. But even so there -could not be peace for long. The boy thrust his bowl suddenly before -her, “M-ma, more!” - -She rose then to fill it for him again, and when she came out of the -door the sun rested in a dip between the hills, on the edge of the -very field where she had worked that day long. It rested there, caught -seemingly for an instant between the hills, and hung motionless, huge -and solidly gold, and then it went slipping slowly out of sight. Out -of the immediate dusk she saw the man coming along a footpath, his hoe -over his shoulder and caught under his raised arm as he came buttoning -his coat. He walked light and lithe as a young male cat, and suddenly -he broke into singing. He loved to sing, his voice high and quivering -and clear, and many a song he knew, so that oftentimes upon a holiday -he was asked to sing for all in the teashop and so pass the time away. -He lowered his voice as he came to the house, and when at last he -reached the threshold he was only singing a very little but still in -that high, shaking, thrilling voice, his words set into some swift -rhythm. He put his hoe against the wall, and the old woman, hearing -him, woke out of a doze that had fallen on her after she had eaten and -she began to speak as though she had not left off, “As I said, my son -likes a little pease mixed in his rice and such a full sweet taste--” - -The man laughed an easy idle laugh and went into the house, and out of -the door his pleasant voice came, “Aye, old mother, and so I do!” - -Outside the door the girl child, her bowl emptied, sat passive and -filled and now that the sun was gone she opened her eyes a little and -looked about her more easily and without complaining. The mother went -into the kitchen again and brought out a steaming bowl of rice for -the man. It was a large bowl of coarse blue and white pottery, and it -was filled to the brim. Into it the mother had dropped an egg she had -saved from the few fowls they kept and now the fresh white of the egg -began to harden. When the man worked hard he must have a bit of meat -or an egg. However they might quarrel, it was a pleasure to her to see -him fed well, and all their quarreling, she thought to herself, was -only of the lips. Well she loved to see him eat, even if sometimes she -belabored him with her tongue for something. She called now to the old -woman, “I have put a new-laid egg into your son’s rice! And he has -cabbage, too.” - -The old woman heard this and began instantly and quickly, “Oh, aye--a -new-laid egg! I ever did say a new-laid egg--it is the best thing for a -young man. It mends the strength--” - -But no one listened. The man ate hastily, being mightily hungered, -and in no time he was calling for the mother to fill his bowl again, -thumping the table with his empty bowl to hasten her. When it was -filled she went and fetched a bowl for herself. But she did not sit -down beside the man. She sat upon her low stool in the dooryard and -supped her rice with pleasure, for she loved her food as a healthy -beast does. Now and again she rose to fetch a bit of cabbage from the -man’s bowl, and as she ate she stared into the dark red sky between -the two hills. The children came and leaned upon her and held up their -mouths to be fed and often the mother put a bit between their lips with -her chopsticks. And although they were filled and no longer hungry, and -although it was what they had eaten, yet this food from their mother’s -bowl seemed better to them than what they had in their own. Even the -yellow farmyard dog came near with confidence. He had been sitting in -hope under the table, but the man kicked him, and he slunk out and -caught deftly the bits of rice the mother threw him once or twice. - -Thrice the mother rose and filled the man’s bowl and he ate to -repletion and gave a grunt of satisfaction and then into his empty -bowl she poured boiling water and he supped it loudly, rising now and -supping as he stood outside the door. When he was through and she had -taken his bowl he stood there a while, looking over the countryside as -the night covered it. There was a young spring moon in the sky, very -small and crystal pale among the stars. He stared at it and fell to -singing some soft twisting song as he stood. - -Out of the other few houses in the hamlet men began to come now also. -Some shouted to each other of a game they had begun at the inn, and -some stood yawning and gaping at their doors. The young husband ceased -his singing suddenly and looked sharply across the street. There was -only one house where a man worked on while others rested. It was his -cousin. That fellow! He would work on even into the night. There he -was sitting at his door, his head bent to see the weaving of a basket -of some sort he made from willow withes. Well, some men were so, but as -for himself--a little game--he turned to speak to the woman and met her -hostile knowing look, and meeting it he cursed her silently. If he had -worked all day, could he not game a bit at night either? Was he to work -and work his life away? But he could not meet that steadfast, angry -look upon him. He shook himself petulantly as a child does and he said, -“After such a day of work as this--well, I will sleep then! I am too -weary to game tonight!” - -He went into the house then and threw himself upon the bed and -stretched and yawned. His old mother, sightless in the dusk of the -lampless room, called out suddenly, “Has my son gone to bed?” - -“Aye, mother!” he answered angrily. “And what else is there to do in -such a little empty place as this--work and sleep--work and sleep--” - -“Yes, yes, work and sleep,” the old woman answered cheerfully, hearing -nothing of the anger in his voice, and she rose and felt her way to her -own corner where behind a blue cotton curtain her pallet was. But the -man was already asleep. - -When she heard the sound of his breathing the mother rose, and the -children followed, clinging to her coat. She rinsed the bowls with a -little cold water from the jar that stood there by the kitchen door, -and set them in a cranny of the earthen wall. Then she went behind -the house, and in the dim light of the moon she lowered a wooden -bucket into a shallow well and dipped it full and took it to the jar -and filled it. Once more she went out and this time to untie the water -buffalo that stood tethered to one of the willow trees which grew -raggedly about the threshing-floor, and she fed it straw and a few -black pease with the straw. When the beast had eaten she led it into -the house and tied it to the post of the bed where the man slept. The -fowls were already roosting beneath the bed, and they cackled drowsily -at her coming and fell silent again. - -Once more she went out and called and a pig grunted out of the -gathering darkness. She had fed it at noon and she did not feed it now, -but pushing and prodding it gently she forced it into the house. Only -the yellow dog she left for it must lie across the threshold. - -All the time the two children had followed her as best they could, -although she moved as she would without stopping for them. Now they -clung to her trousered legs, whimpering and crying. She stooped and -lifted the younger one into her arms, and leading the older by the -hand, she took them into the house and barred the door fast. Then she -went to the bed and laid the children at the man’s feet. Softly she -removed their outer garments and then her own, and creeping between the -man and his children, she stretched herself out and drew the quilt over -them all. There she lay stretched and still, her strong body full of -healthy weariness. Lying like this in the darkness she was filled with -tenderness. However impatient she might be in the day, however filled -with little sudden angers, at night she was all tenderness--passionate -tenderness to the man when he turned to her in need, tender to the -children as they lay helpless in sleep, tender to the old woman if she -coughed in the night and rising to fetch a little water for her, tender -even to the beasts if they stirred and frightened each other with their -own stirring, and she called out to them, “Be still,--sleep--day is a -long way off yet--” and hearing her rough kind voice even they were -quieted and slept again. - -Now in the darkness the boy nuzzled against her, fumbling at her -breast. She let him suckle, lying in warm drowsiness. Her breast was -dry, but it was soft and gave remembered comfort to the child. Soon it -would be full again. Beyond the boy the girl lay, screwing her eyes -tightly shut, rubbing at their incessant itching as she fell asleep. -Even after she slept she tore at her eyes, not knowing what she did. - -But soon they all slept. Heavily and deeply they all slept, and if the -dog barked in the night they all slept on except the mother, for to -them these were the sounds of the night. Only the mother woke to listen -and take heed and if she needed not to rise, she slept again, too. - - - - -II - - -Is there one day different from another under heaven for a mother? In -the morning the mother woke and rose before dawn, and while the others -still slept she opened the door and let out the fowls and the pig and -led the water buffalo into the dooryard, and she swept up what filth -they had dropped in the night and put it upon the pile at a corner of -the dooryard. While the others still lay she went into the kitchen and -lit the fire and made water hot for the man and for the old woman to -drink when they woke, and some she poured into a wooden basin to cool a -little, so that she might wash the girl’s eyes. - -Every morning the girl’s eyes were sealed fast shut and she could -not see at all until they were washed. At first the child had been -frightened and so was the mother, but the old grandmother piped, “So -was I when I was a child, and I never died of it!” - -Now they were used to it and they knew it meant nothing except that -children could be so and not die of it. Scarcely had the mother poured -the water before the children came, the boy leading the girl by the -hand. They had crept up silently and not waking the man, fearing his -anger, for with all his merry ways when he was minded to be merry, the -man could be angry and cuff them furiously if he were waked before his -sleep was ended. The two stood silently at the door and the boy winked -his eyes with sleep and stared at his mother and yawned, but the little -girl stood patiently waiting, her eyes sealed fast shut. - -Then the mother rose quickly and taking the gray towel that hung upon a -wooden peg driven into the wall she dipped the end of it into the basin -and slowly wiped the girl’s eyes. The child whimpered soundlessly and -only with her breath, and the mother thought to herself as she thought -every morning, “Well and I must see to the balm for this child’s eyes. -Some time or other I must see to it. If I do not forget it when that -next load of rice straw is sold I will tell him to go to a medicine -shop--there is one there by the gate to the right and down a small -street--” - -Even as she thought this the man came to the door drawing his garments -about himself, yawning aloud and scratching his head. She said, -speaking aloud her thought, “When you carry that load of rice straw in -to sell do you go to that medicine shop that is by the Water Gate, and -ask for a balm or some stuff for such sore eyes as these.” - -But the man was sour with sleep still and he answered pettishly, “And -why should we use our scanty money for sore eyes when she can never die -of it? I had sore eyes when I was a child, and my father never spent -his money on me, though I was his only son who lived, too.” - -The mother, perceiving it was an ill time to speak, said no more, and -she went and poured his water out. But she was somewhat angry too, and -she would not give it to him but set it down on the table where he -must reach for it. Nevertheless, she said nothing and for the time she -put the matter from her. It was true that many children had sore eyes -and they grew well as childhood passed, even as the man had, so that -although his eyes were scarred somewhat about the lids as one could see -who looked him full in the face, still he could see well enough if the -thing were not too fine. It was not as though he was a scholar and had -to peer at a book for his living. - -Suddenly the old woman stirred and called out feebly, and the mother -fetched a bowl of hot water and took it to her to sup before she rose, -and the old woman supped it loudly, and belched up the evil winds from -her inner emptiness and moaned a little with her age that made her weak -in the morning. - -The mother went back into the kitchen then and set about the morning -food, and the children sat close together upon the ground waiting, -huddled in the chill of the early morning. The boy rose at last and -went to where his mother fed the fire, but the girl sat on alone. -Suddenly the sun burst over the eastern hill and the light streamed in -great bright rays over the land and these rays struck upon the child’s -eyes so that she closed them quickly. Once she would have cried out, -but now she only drew her breath in hard as even a grown person might -have done and sat still, her red eyelids pressed close together, nor -did she move until she felt her mother push against her a bowl of food. - - * * * * * - -Yes, it is true that all days were the same for the mother, but she -never felt them dull and she was well content with the round of the -days. If any had asked her she would have made those bright black eyes -of hers wide and said, “But the land changes from seedtime to harvest -and there is the reaping of the harvest from our own land and the -paying of the grain to the landlord from that land we rent, and there -are the holidays of the festivals and of the new year, yes and even the -children change and grow and I am busy bearing more, and to me there is -naught but change, and change enough to make me work from dawn to dark, -I swear.” - -If she had a bit of time there were other women in the hamlet and this -woman due for birth and that one grieving because a child was dead, -or one had a new pattern for the making of a flower upon a shoe, or -some new way to cut a coat. And there were days when she went into the -town with some grain or cabbage to sell, she and the man together, and -there in the town were strange sights to see and think about if ever -she had time to think at all. But the truth was that this woman was -such a one as could live well content with the man and children and -think of nothing else at all. To her--to know the fullness of the man’s -frequent passion, to conceive by him and know life growing within her -own body, to feel this new flesh take shape and grow, to give birth and -feel a child’s lips drink at her breast--these were enough. To rise at -dawn and feed her house and tend the beasts, to sow the land and reap -its fruit, to draw water at the well for drink, to spend days upon the -hills reaping the wild grass and know the sun and wind upon her, these -were enough. She relished all her life: giving birth, the labor on the -land, eating and drinking and sleeping, sweeping and setting in rude -order her house and hearing the women in the hamlet praise her for her -skill in work and sewing; even quarreling with the man was good and set -some edge upon their passion for each other. So therefore she rose to -every day with zest. - -On this day when the man had eaten and sighed and taken up his hoe and -gone somewhat halting as he always did to the field, she rinsed the -bowls and sat the old woman out in the warmth of the sun and bade the -children play near but not go too near the pond. Then she took her own -hoe and set forth, stopping once or twice to look back. The thin voice -of the old woman carried faintly on the breeze and the mother smiled -and went on. To watch the door was the sole thing the old woman could -do and she did it proudly. Old and half blind as she was, yet she could -see if anyone came near who should not and she could raise a cry. A -troublesome old woman she was, and a very troublesome old care often, -and worse than any child and more, because she grew wilful and could -not be cuffed as a child could. Yet when the cousin’s wife said one -day, “A very good thing it will be for you, goodwife, when that old -thing is dead, so old and blind and full of aches and pains and pettish -with her food doubtless,” the mother had replied in the mild way she -had when she was secretly tender, “Yes, but a very good use still, too, -to watch the door, and I hope she will live until the girl is bigger.” - -Yes, the mother never had it in her heart to be hard on an old woman -like that. Women she had heard who boasted of how they waged war in -a house against their mothers-in-law and how they would not bear the -evil tempers of the elder women. But to this young mother the old woman -seemed but another child of hers, childish and wanting this and that as -children do, so that sometimes it seemed a weary thing to run hither -and thither upon the hills in spring seeking some herb the old soul -longed for, yet when one summer came and there was a fierce flux in -the hamlet so that two strong men died and some women and many little -children, and the old woman lay dying, or so it seemed, and so seemed -that they bought the best coffin they could and set there ready, the -young mother was truly glad when the old woman clung to her life and -came back to it for a while longer. Yes, even though the hardy old -creature had worn out two burial robes, the mother was glad to have -her live. It was a joke in the whole hamlet to see how the old life -hung on. The red coat the young mother had made to bury her in she wore -under a blue coat, as it was the custom to do in these parts, until it -was worn and gone and the old woman fretted and was ill at ease until -the mother had made it new again, and now she wore this second one -merrily and if any called out, “Are you still there then, old one?” she -would pipe back gaily, “Aye, here I be and my good grave clothes on me! -A-wearing them out, I be, and I cannot say how many more I can wear -out!” - -And the old soul chuckled to think how good a joke it was that she -lived on and on and could not die. - -Now, looking back, the mother smiled and caught the old woman’s voice, -“Rest your heart, good daughter--here am I to watch the door!” - -Yes, she would miss this old soul when dead. Yet what use missing? Life -came and went at the appointed hour, and against such appointment there -was no avail. - -Therefore the mother went her way tranquil. - - - - -III - - -When the beans she had planted in the field were come to flower and the -winds were full of their fragrance and when the valley was yellow with -the blooming of the rape they grew for the oil they pressed from its -seeds, the mother gave birth to her fourth child. There was no midwife -for hire in that small hamlet as there might be in a city or town or -even in a larger village, but women helped each other when the need -came, and there were grandmothers to say what to do if aught went wrong -and a child came perversely or if there was anything in a birth to -astonish a young woman. But the mother was well made, not too small or -slight, and loosely knit and supple in the thighs, and there was never -anything wrong with her. Even when she had fallen and dropped her child -too soon, she did it easily, and it was little to her save the pity of -a child lost and her trouble for naught. - -In her time she called upon their cousin’s wife, and when the cousin’s -wife needed it, she did the same for her. So now upon a sweet and windy -day in spring the woman felt her hour on her and she went across the -field and set her hoe against the house and she called out to the -house across the way and the cousin’s wife came running, wiping her -hands on her apron as she came, for she had been washing clothes at -the pond’s edge. This cousin’s wife was a kindly, good woman, her face -round and brown and her nostrils black and upturned above a big red -mouth. She was a noisy, busy soul, talking the livelong day beside her -silent man, and now she came bustling and laughing and shouting as she -came, “Well, goodwife, I do ever say how good a thing it is that we do -not come together. I have been watching you and wondering which would -come first, you or I. But I am slower somehow this year than I thought -to be, and you are bearing and I but just begun!” - -Her voice came out big and loud when she said this, for it was her way, -and women hearing called from other houses and they said gaily, “Your -hour is it, goodwife? Well, luck then, and a son!” And one who was a -widow and a gossip called out mournfully, “Aye, make the most of your -man while you have him, for here be I, a good bearing woman too, and no -man any more!” - -But the mother answered nothing. She smiled a little, pale under the -dust and the sweat upon her face and she went into the house. The old -woman followed after chattering and laughing in her pleasure in the -hour, and she said, “I ever said when my hour used to come, and you -know I bore nine children in my time, daughter, and all good sound -children until they died, and I ever said--” - -But the mother did not hear. She took a little stool and sat down -without speaking anything and smoothed the rough hair from her face -with her two hands and her hands were wet with sweat--not the sweat of -the fields, but this new sweat of pain. And she took up the edge of her -coat and wiped her face, and she uncoiled her thick long hair and bound -it fresh and firm. Then the pain caught her hard, and she bent over -silently, waiting. - -Beside her the old woman clacked on and the cousin’s wife laughed at -her, but when she saw the mother bend like this she ran and shut the -door, and stood to wait. But suddenly there came a beating on the door -and it was the boy. He saw the door closed in the day and his mother -inside and he was afraid and he set up a cry and would have the door -opened. At first the mother said, “Let him be there so that I may have -peace at this task,” and the cousin’s wife went to the door and bawled -through the crack, “Stay there for a while for your mother is at her -task!” And the old woman echoed, “Stay there, my little one, and I will -give you a penny to buy peanuts if you will play well and you shall see -what your mother will have for you in a little while!” - -But the boy was afraid to see the door shut in the daytime and would -have his way, and the girl began to whimper too as she did when her -brother cried and she came feeling her way and beat too upon the door -with her puny fists, and at last the mother grew angry in her pain and -the more angry because it bore her down so hard, and she rose and -rushed out and cuffed the boy heartily and shouted at him, “Yes, and -you do wear my life away and you never heed a thing that is said, and -here is another to come just like you, I do swear!” - -But the instant she had beat him her heart grew soft and the anger in -her was satisfied and went out of her and she said more gently, “But -there, come in if you must, and it is nothing to see, either.” And she -said to the cousin’s wife, “Leave the door a little open, for they feel -shut out from me, and they are not used to it.” - -Then she sat down again and held her head in her hands and gave herself -silently to her pains. As for the boy, he came in and seeing nothing, -but feeling his father’s cousin’s wife look at him hard as if he had -done some ill thing, he went out again. But the little girl came in -and sat down on the earthen floor beside her mother and held her hands -against her eyes to ease them. - -Thus they waited, the one woman in silence and in pain, and the other -two talking of this and that in the hamlet and of the man in the -farthest house and how today he was off gambling and his land lying -there waiting for him, and how this morning the man and his wife had -had a mighty quarrel for that he had taken the last bit of money in the -house, and she, poor soul, had been no match for him, and when he was -gone she had sat upon the doorstep and wailed out her woes for all to -hear, and the cousin’s wife said, “It is not as if he ever won a bit to -bring home to her either. He can only lose and lose again, and this is -what makes her so sorrowful.” And the old woman sighed and spat upon -the floor and said, “Aye, a very sorrowful thing it is when a man is -made for losing and made so he never gains, but there be some men so, -and well I know it, but not in my house, thank the gods, for my son is -very good at winning in a game.” - -But before she had finished speaking the mother cried out and turned -herself away a little from the girl and she loosened her girdle and -leaned forward upon the stool. Then did the cousin’s wife run forward -and she caught nimbly in her two hands that little child for whom they -waited, and it was a son. - -As for the mother, she went and laid herself upon the bed and rested -after her labor, and rest was sweet and she slept heavily and long. -While she slept the cousin’s wife washed and wrapped the child and laid -him down beside the sleeping mother and she did not wake even when his -little squeaking cry rang out. The cousin’s wife went home then to her -work once more and she bade the old woman send the boy to call her when -the mother woke. - -When the lad came crying, “Did you know I have a brother now?” she came -quickly with a bowl of soup, laughing at the boy and teasing him and -saying, “I brought the boy myself and do I not know?” - -But the boy stared thoughtful at this and at last he said, “Is it not -ours then to keep?” and the women laughed, but the old woman laughed -loudest of all, because she thought the boy so clever. The mother drank -the soup then gratefully, and she murmured to her cousin’s wife, “It is -your good heart, my sister.” - -But the cousin’s wife said, “Do you not the same for me in my hour?” - -And so the two women felt themselves the more deeply friends because of -this hour common to them both and that must come again and yet again. - - - - -IV - - -But there was the man. To him there was no change in time, no hope of -any new thing day after day. Even in the coming of the children his -wife loved there was no new thing, for to him they were born the same -and one was like another and all were to be clothed and fed, and when -they were grown they must be wed in their turn and once more children -born and all was the same, each day like to another, and there was no -new thing. - -In this little hamlet so had he himself been born, and except to go to -the small town which lay behind a curve of the hill upon the river’s -edge, he had never once seen anything new in any day he lived. When -he rose in the morning there was this circle of low round hills set -against this selfsame sky, and he went forth to labor until night, and -when night was come there were these hills set against this sky and he -went into the house where he had been born and he slept upon the bed -where he had slept with his own parents until it grew shameful and then -they had a pallet made for him. - -Yes, and now he slept there in the bed with his own wife and children -and his old mother slept on the pallet, and it was the same bed and -the same house, and even in the house scarcely one new thing except the -few small things that had been bought at the time of his wedding, a new -teapot, the blue quilt upon the bed newly covered, new candlesticks and -a new god of paper on the wall. It was a god of wealth, and a merry old -man he was made to be, his robes all red and blue and yellow, but he -had never brought wealth to this house. No, this man looked often at -the god and cursed him in his heart because he could look so merrily -down from the earthen wall and into this poor room that was always and -ever as poor as it was. - -Sometimes when the man came home from a holiday in town or when he had -gone on a rainy day to the little inn and gambled a while with the -idlers there, when he came home again to this small house, to this -woman bearing her children that he must labor to feed, it fell upon him -like a terror that so long as he lived there was naught for him but -this, to rise in the morning and go to this land of which they owned -but little and rented from a landlord who lived in pleasure in some far -city; to spend his day upon that rented land even as his father had -done before him; to come home to eat his same coarse food and never the -best the land could give, for the best must ever be sold for others to -eat; to sleep, to rise again to the same next day. Even the harvests -were not his own, for he must measure out a share to that landlord and -he must take another share and fee the townsman who was the landlord’s -agent. When he thought of this agent he could not bear it, for this -townsman was such a one as he himself would fain have been, dressed in -soft silk and his skin pale and fair and with that smooth oily look -that townsmen have who work at some small, light task and are well fed. - -On such days when all these thoughts pressed on him he was very surly -and he spoke not at all to the woman except to curse her for some -slowness, and when her quick temper rose against him it was a strange -malicious pleasure to him to fall to loud quarreling with her, and it -eased him somehow, although she had often the best of him, too, because -her temper was more stout than his, except when she was angry at a -child. Even to his anger he could not cling as long as she did, but -grew weary of it and flung himself off to something else. Quickest of -all would her anger rise if he struck one of the children or shouted -at one if it cried. Then she could not bear it, and she flew against -him if it were to save a child and ever the child was right and he -was wrong, and this angered him more than anything, that she put the -children before him, or he thought she did. - -Yes, on days like this he held as nothing even the good few holidays he -took, the feast days and the long idle winter days when he did nothing -but sleep, and when he could not sleep he gambled. A lucky gambler -he was, too, and he always came home with more than he took, and it -seemed an easy way to live, if he were a lone man and had but himself -to feed. He loved the chance of gambling and the excitement and the -merriment of the game and all the men crowded together to see what -lucky play he made. Truly luck was in his nimble fingers, which even -the plough and the hoe had not made stiff, for he was young yet, only -twenty and eight years of age, and he had never worked more than he -must. - -But the mother never knew what was in the heart of the father of her -children. That he loved play she knew, but what matter that if he -did not lose at play? It was in truth a pride to her that when other -women complained aloud of their own men and how the scanty earnings of -the land were lost at that table in the inn, she need not complain, -and when one cried out to her, “If my poor wretch were but like that -pretty man of yours, goodwife, his fingers are faery somehow, so that -the money crawls to them of its own accord, seemingly, upon the gaming -table--a very lucky woman be you, goodwife!” she smiled complacently -and she did not often blame him for his play unless it served as excuse -for some other cause of quarrel. - -And she did not blame him deeply that he could not work steadily hour -after hour in the fields as she did, though at the moment she might lay -about him sharply with her tongue. She knew that men cannot work as -women do, but have the hearts of children always in them, and she was -used now to working on in her steady way while he flung down his hoe -and laid himself upon the grass that grew on the footpath between this -field and the next and slept an hour or two. But when she said aught to -him in her scolding way, which was but the way, after all, her tongue -was used to speak, for secretly she loved him well, he would answer, -“Yes, and sleep I may for I have worked enough to feed myself.” - -She might have said, “Have we not the children then and shall not each -do what he is able to make more for them?” But this she did not say -because it was true the children seemed ever hers and hers alone, since -he did nothing for them. Besides, her tongue was not so adroit as his -to find an answer. - -But sometimes her wrath would come up hotly and then it would come -with more than her usual scolding speech. Once or twice in a season a -quarrel would go deep with her and give an unused bitterness to her -tongue. When the man bought some foolish trinket in the market with the -silver he had taken for the cabbage there, or when he was drunken on -a day that was not a holiday, then she would grow angry and well-nigh -she forgot she loved him in her heart. This was a deep fierce anger -too, which smouldered and broke forth so many hours after his misdeed -that the man had almost forgot what he had done, for it was his way to -forget easily anything that did not please him, and when her anger came -up in her like this she was helpless against it and it must out. - -On such a day one autumn he came home with a gold ring on his finger, -or one he said was gold, and when she saw it her anger came up and she -cried in the strangest, hottest way, “You--and you will not take your -share of our common bitterness of life! No, you must needs go and spend -the scant bit we have for a silly ring to put upon your little finger! -And whoever heard of a good and honest poor man who wore a ring upon -his finger? A rich man, he may do it and nothing said, but if a poor -man does it, has it any good meaning? Gold! Whoever heard of a gold -ring bought for copper?” - -At this he shouted at her, his face rebellious as a child’s, his red -lips pouting, “It is gold, I tell you! It is stolen from some rich -house, the man who sold it told me, and he showed it to me secretly -upon the street as I passed, and he had it under his coat, and let me -see it as I passed--” - -But she sneered and said, “Yes, and what he saw was a silly countryman -whom he could trick! And even though it were gold, what if it be seen -upon your finger in the town some day and you be caught and thrown into -a gaol for thief and then how will we buy you out again, or even feed -you in the gaol? Give it to me and let me see if it be gold!” - -But he would not give the toy to her. He shook himself sullenly as a -child does and suddenly she could not bear him. No, she flew at him and -scratched his smooth and pretty face and she beat him so heartily that -he was aghast at her and he tore the ring from his finger scornfully -but half frightened, too, and he cried, “There--take it! Very well I -know you are angry because I bought it for my own finger and not for -yours!” - -At this she felt fresh anger, because when he spoke she was astonished -to know he spoke the truth, and it was secret pain to her that he never -bought any trinket to put into her ears or on her fingers as some men -do for their wives, and this she did think of when she saw the ring. -She stared at him and he said again, his voice breaking with pity for -himself and his hard life, “You ever do begrudge me the smallest good -thing for myself. No, all we have must go for those brats you breed!” - -He began to weep then in good earnest and he went and flung himself -upon the bed and lay there weeping and making the most of his weeping -for her to hear, and his old mother who had heard the quarrel in -greatest fright ran to him as best she could and coaxed him lest he be -ill, and she cast hostile looks at the daughter-in-law whom commonly -she loved well enough, and the children wept when they saw their father -weep, and felt their mother hard and harsh. - -But the mother was not cool yet. She picked up the ring from the dust -where he had thrown it and put it between her teeth and bit on it, lest -by any chance it might be the gold he said it was and a good bargain -they could sell again for something. It was true that sometimes stolen -things were cheaply sold, but scarcely, she thought, so cheaply as he -said this was, although he might have lied, perhaps, in fear of her. -But when she bit on it the thing would not give at all between her hard -white teeth as it must if the gold were pure, and she cried out in new -anger, “And if it were gold would it not be soft between my teeth? -It is brass and hard--” she gnawed at it a while and spat the yellow -shallow gold from out her mouth--“See, it has scarce been dipped even -in the gold!” - -She could not bear it then that the man had been so childishly -deceived, and she went out from him to work upon the land, her heart -hard so that she would not see the sobbing children nor would she hear -the old mother’s quavering anxious voice that said, “When I was young -I let my man be pleased--a wife should let her man be pleased with a -little slight thing....” No, she would not hear anything to cool her -anger down. - -But after she had worked a while on the land the gentle autumn wind -blew into her angry heart and cooled it without her knowing it. -Drifting leaves and brown hillsides from which the green of summer had -died away, the gray sky and the far cry of wild geese flying southward, -the quiescent land and all the quiet melancholy of the falling year -stole into her heart without her knowledge and made her kind again. And -while her hand scattered the winter wheat into the soft and well-tilled -soil, in her heart came quiet and she remembered that she loved the -man well and his laughing face came before her and stirred her and she -said to herself remorsefully, “I will make him a dainty dish for his -meal this noon. It may be I was too angry for but a little money spent, -after all.” - -She was in great haste and longing to be gone then and at home to make -the dish and show him she was changed, but when she was come there he -still lay angry in the bed and he lay with his face inward and would -not say a word. When she had made the dish and had caught some shrimps -from the pond to mix into it as he liked and when she called him he -would not rise and he would not eat at all. He said very faintly as -though he were ill, “I cannot eat indeed--you have cursed the souls out -of me.” - -She said no more then but set the bowl aside and went silent to her -work again, her lips pressed hard together, nor would she aid the old -mother when she besought her son to eat. But the mother could not beg -him for she remembered freshly all her anger. And as she went the dog -came up to her begging and hungry, and she went into the kitchen again -and there the dish was she had made for the man. She put out her hand -and muttered, “Well, then, I will even give it to the dog.” But she -could not do it. After all, it was food for men and not to be so wasted -and she set the dish back in the niche of the wall and found a little -stale cold rice and gave it to the dog. And she said to her heart that -she was angry still. - -Yet in the night when she laid herself beside him and the children -curled against her in the darkness and she felt the man on her other -side, her anger was clean gone. Then it seemed to her this man was -but a child, too, and dependent on her as all in this house were, and -when the morning came she rose, very gentle and quiet, and after all -were fed except him, she went to him and coaxed him to rise and eat, -and when he saw her like this he rose slowly as though from a sick bed -and he ate a little of the dish she had made and then he finished it, -for it was one he loved. And while he ate the old woman watched him -lovingly, clacking as she watched, of this and that. - -But he would not work that day. No, as the mother went out to the field -he sat upon a stool in the sun of the doorway and he shook his head -feebly and he said, “I feel a very weak place in me and a pain that -flutters at the mouth of my heart and I will rest myself this day.” - -And the mother felt that she had been wrong to blame him so heartily -that he was like this and so she said, soothing him and sorry for her -anger, “Rest yourself, then,” and went her way. - -But when she was gone the man grew restless and he was weary of his -mother’s constant chatter, for the old woman grew very merry to think -her son would be at home all day to talk to, though for the man it was -a dull thing to sit and listen to her and see the children playing. -He rose then, muttering he would be better if he had some hot tea in -him, and he went down the little street to the wayside inn his fifth -cousin kept. At the inn there were other men drinking tea, too, and -talking, and tables were set under a canopy of cloth upon the street, -where travelers might pass, and when such travelers stayed one heard -a tale or two of this strange thing and that, and even perhaps some -story-teller passed and told his tales, and indeed the inn was a merry, -noisy place. - -But as he went the man met his sober cousin coming from the field for -his first morning meal, having already worked a space since dawn, and -this cousin called, “Where do you go and not at work?” - -And the man answered complaining and very weak, “That woman of mine has -cursed me ill over some small thing I scarcely know, and there is no -pleasing her, and she cursed me so sore I had an illness in the night -and it frightened even her so that she bade me rest myself today and I -go to drink a little hot tea for the comfort of my belly.” - -Then the cousin spat and passed on, saying nothing, for he was by -nature a man who did not speak unless he must, and kept what few -thoughts he had close in him. - - * * * * * - -So was the man impatient with his life and it seemed to him a thing -not to be borne forever that there was to be no new thing for him, and -only this wheel of days, year upon year, until he grew old and died. -The more hard was it to him because the few travelers who came past -the wayside inn told him of strange and wonderful things beyond the -circle of the hills and at the mouth of the river that flowed past -them. There the river met the sea, they said, and there was a vast city -full of people of many hues of skin, and money was easy come by with -very little work for it and gaming houses everywhere and pretty singing -girls in every gaming house, such girls as the men in this hamlet had -never even seen and could not hope to see their lives long. Strange -sights there were in that city, streets as smooth as threshing-floors -and carts of every sort, houses tall as mountains and shops with -windows filled with merchandise of all the world that ships brought -there from over seas. A man could spend a lifetime there looking at -those windows and he could not finish with the looking. Good food and -plenty was there, too, sea fish and sea meats, and after he had eaten -a man might enter into a great playhouse where there was every sort -of play and picture, some merry to make a man burst his belly with -laughing and some strange and fierce and some very witty and vile to -see. And strangest thing of all was this, that in the great city all -the night was light as day with a sort of lamp they had, not made with -hands nor lit with any flame, but with some pure light that was caught -from out of heaven. - -Sometimes the man gamed a while with such a traveler and ever the -traveler was astonished at so skilled a gamester as he in this small -country hamlet, and would cry, “Good fellow, you play as lucky as a -city man, I swear, and you could play in any city pleasure house!” - -The man smiled to hear this, then, and he said earnestly, “Do you think -I could in truth?” and he would say in his own heart with scorn and -longing, “It is true there is not one in this little dull place who -dares play with me any more, and even in the town I hold my own against -the townsmen.” - -When he thought of this more than ever did he long exceedingly to -leave this life of his upon the land he hated and often he muttered to -himself as his hoe rose and fell lagging over the clods, “Here I be, -young and pretty and with my luck all in my fingers, and here I be, -stuck like a fish in a well. All I can see is this round sky over my -head and the same sky in rain or shine, and in my house the same woman -and one child after another and all alike weeping and brawling and -wanting to be fed. Why should I wear my good body to the bone to feed -them and never find any merry thing at all for me in my own life?” - -And indeed, when the mother had conceived and borne this last son he -was even sullen and angered against her because she bore so easily and -so quickly after the last birth, although very well he knew this is a -thing for which a wife should be praised and not blamed, and he might -complain with justice only if she were barren, but never if she bore in -her due season every year and sons more often than not. - -But in these days justice was not in him. He was but a lad still in -some ways, and younger by some two years than his wife was, as the -custom was in those parts, where it was held fitting for a man to be -younger than his wife, and his heart rose hot and high within him and -it was nothing to him that he was the father of sons, seeing that he -longed for pleasure and strange sights and any idle joy that he could -find in some city far away. - -And indeed he was such a one as heaven had shaped for joy. He was well -formed and not tall, but strong and slight and full of grace, his -bones small and exquisite. He had a pretty face, too, his eyes bright -and black and full of laughter at what time he was not sullen over -something else, and when he was in good company he could always sing a -new song of some kind and he had a quick and witty tongue, and he could -say a thing seeming simple but full of wit and hidden coarseness such -as the countrymen loved. He could set a whole crowd laughing with his -songs and wit, and men and women too liked him very well. When he heard -them laugh his heart leaped with pleasure in this power he had, and -when he came home again and saw his wife’s grave face and sturdy body -it seemed to him that only she did not know him for the fine man he -truly was, for only she never praised him. It was true he made no joke -in his own house and he was seldom merry even with his own children. -He was such a one as seemed to save all his good humor and his merry, -lovable looks for strangers and for those who were not of his own house. - -And the woman knew this, too, so that half it angered her and half it -was a pain when other women cried, “That man of yours, I do declare his -tongue is good as any play, and his quick merry looks--” - -And she would answer quietly, “Aye, a very merry man, truly,” and would -talk then of other things to hide her pain, because she loved him -secretly. And she knew he was never merry when he was with her. - - * * * * * - -Now it happened that in the new summer time when the mother had borne -her fourth child, the most evil quarrel that ever was between the man -and woman came to pass. It was on a day in the sixth month of the year -and it was early summer and it was such a day in that summer as might -set any man to dreaming of new joy, and so that man had dreamed the -whole morning long. The air was so full of languor and soft warmth, -the leaves and grass so newly green, and the sky so bright and deep a -blue that scarcely could he work at all. He could not sleep, either, -for that day was too full of life for sleep, and the great heat not -yet come. Even the birds made continual songs and chirping and there -was a sweet wind, teasing and blowing now this fragrance and that down -from the hill where yellow fragrant lilies bloomed and wild wistaria -hung in pale purple wreaths. The wind blew against the sky, too, and -shifted the great billowing clouds as white as snow, and they floated -across the bright sky and set the hills and valley in such vivid light -and darkness as are seldom seen, so that now it was bright and now -shadowy, and there was no repose in the day. It was a day too merry for -work, and very disturbing to the heart of any man. - -In the noontime of that bright day it happened that a pedlar of summer -stuffs came through the countryside, and he carried on his shoulder -a great heap of his stuffs, of every hue and shade, and some were -flowered, and as he went he called, “Cloth--good cloth for sale!” - -When he came to this house where the man and the woman and the old -mother and the little children sat in the shade of their willow tree -and ate their noon meal he halted and cried, “Shall I stay, goodwife, -and show you my stuffs?” - -But the mother called back, “We have no money to buy, unless it be a -foot of some common cheap stuff for this new son of mine. We be but -poor farmer folk and not able to buy new clothes nor much of any stuffs -except such as must be had to keep us from bareness!” - -And the old woman, who must always put in her bit, cried in her little -old shrill voice, “Aye, it is true what my daughter-in-law says, and -the stuffs be very poor these days and washed to shreds in a time or -two, and I mind when I was young I wore my grandmother’s coat and it -was good till I was married and needing something new but still only -for pride’s sake, for the coat was good enough still, but here I be in -my second shroud and nearly ready for a third, the stuffs be so poor -and weak these days--” - -Then the pedlar came near, scenting sale, and he was a man with very -pleasant and courteous coaxing ways such as pedlars have, and he -humored the mother and had a good kindly word for the old woman, too, -and he said to her, “Old mother, here I have a bit of cloth as good as -any the ancients had and good enough even for that new grandson you -have--goodwife, it is a bit left from a large piece that a rich lady -bought in a great village I went through today, and she bought it for -her only son. Of her I did ask the honest price seeing she cut from a -whole piece, but since there is only this bit left, I will all but give -it to you, goodwife, in honor of the fine new son you have there at -your breast.” - -So saying these words smoothly and as though all in one flowing breath, -the pedlar drew from out his pack a very pretty end of cloth, and it -was as he said, flowered with great red peonies upon a grass-green -ground. - -The old woman cried out with pleasure because her dim eyes could see -its hues so clear and bright, and the mother loved it when she saw it. -She looked down then at the babe upon her breast, naked except for -a bit of old rag about its belly, and it was true he was a fat and -handsome child, the prettiest of her three, and like the father, and he -would look most beautiful in that bit of flowery stuff. So it seemed -to the mother and she felt her heart grow weak in her and she said -unwillingly, “How much is that bit then? But still I cannot buy it for -we have scarcely enough to feed these children and this old soul and -pay the landlord too. We cannot buy such stuffs as rich women put upon -their only sons.” - -The old woman looked very doleful at this, and the little girl had -slipped from her place and went to peer at the bright cloth, putting -her dim eyes near to see it. Only the elder lad ate on, caring nothing, -and the man sat idly, singing a little, careless of this bit of stuff -for no one but a child. - -Then the pedlar dropped his voice low and coaxing and he held the -cloth near the child, but not too near either, careful lest some soil -come on it if it were not bought, and he said half whispering, “Such -cloth--such strength--such color--I have had many a piece pass through -my hands, but never such a piece as this. If I had a son of my own I -would have saved it out for him, but I have only a poor barren wife who -gives me no child at all, and why should the cloth be wasted on such as -she?” - -The old woman listened to this tale and when she heard him say his wife -was barren she was vastly diverted and she cried out, “A pity, too, and -you so good a man! And why do you not take a little wife, good man, -and try again and see what you can do? I ever say a man must try three -women before he knows the fault is his--” - -But the mother did not hear. She sat musing and unsure, and her heart -grew weaker still, for she looked down at her child and he was so -beautiful with this fine new stuff against his soft golden skin and his -red cheeks that she yielded and said, “What is your least price, then, -for more I cannot pay?” - -Then the pedlar named a sum, and it was not too high and not as high -as she had feared, and her heart leaped secretly. But she shook her -head and looked grave and named half the sum, as the custom was in -bargaining in those parts. This was so little that the pedlar took the -cloth back quickly and put it in its place and made to go away again, -and then the mother, remembering her fair child, called out a sum a -little more, and so haggling back and forth and after many false starts -away the pedlar made, he threw down his pack again and pulled forth -the bit, agreeing at last to somewhat less than he had asked, and so -the mother rose to fetch the money from the cranny in the earthen wall -where it was kept. - -Now all this time the man sat idly by, singing, and his high voice -made soft and small and stopping sometimes to sup down his hot water -that he drank always after he had eaten, and he took no part in this -bargain. But the pedlar being a very clever fellow and eager to turn -to his account every passing moment, took care to spread out seemingly -in carelessness a piece of grass cloth that he had, and it was that -cloth made of wild flax which cools the flesh upon a hot day in summer, -and in color it was like the sky, as clear, as blue. Then the pedlar -glanced secretly at the man to see if the man saw it, and he said half -laughing, “Have you bought a robe for yourself yet this summer? For -if you have not, I have it for you here, and at a price I swear is -cheaper than it can be bought in any shop in town.” - -But the man shook his head and a dark look came down upon his idle, -pretty face, and he said with bitterness, “I have nothing wherewith to -buy myself anything in this house. Work I have and nothing else, and -all I gain for it is more to feed, the more I work.” - -Now the pedlar had passed through many a town and countryside and it -was his trade to know men’s faces and he saw at a glance that this man -was one who loved his pleasure, and that he was like a lad held down -to life he was not ready for, and so he said in seeming kindliness and -pity, “It is true that I can see you have a very hard life and little -gain, and from your fine looks I see it is too hard a life. But if -you buy yourself a new robe you will find it like a very potent new -medicine to put pleasure in your heart. There is nothing like a new -summer robe to put joy in a man, and with that ring upon your finger -shined and cleaned and your hair smoothed with a bit of oil and this -new robe upon you, I swear I could not see a prettier man even in a -town.” - -Now the man heard this and it pleased him and he laughed aloud half -sheepishly, and then he remembered himself and said, “And why should -I not for once have a new robe for myself? There is nothing ahead but -one after another of these young ones, and am I forever to wear my -old rags?” And he stooped swiftly and fingered the good stuff in his -fingers and while he looked at it the old mother was excited by the -thought and she cried, “It is a very fair piece, my son, and if you -must have a robe then this is as pretty a blue robe as ever I did see, -and I remember once your father had such a robe--was it when we were -wed? But no, I was wed in winter, yes, in winter, for I sneezed so at -the wedding and the men laughed to see a bride sneezing so--” - -But the man asked suddenly and roughly, “How much will it be for a -robe?” - -Now when the pedlar said the price, at that moment the mother came -forth with the money in her hand counted and exact to the last penny -and she cried out alarmed, “We can spend no more!” - -At that cry of hers some desire hardened in the man and he said -wilfully, “But I will have myself a robe cut from this piece and I like -it very well so that I will have it for the once! There are those three -silver pieces I know we have.” - -Now those three coins were of good value and coins the mother had -brought with her when she came to be wed, and her own mother had handed -them to her for her own when she left her home. They were her precious -possession and she had never found the hour when she could spend them. -Even when she had bought the coffin for the old mother when they -thought her dying, she had pinched and borrowed and would not spend her -own, and often the thought of those three silver pieces was in her mind -for safe riches, and they were there if ever times grew too hard, some -war or hardship that might come at any hour and lose them the fruits of -their land. With those three coins in the wall she knew they could not -starve for a while. So now she cried, “That silver we cannot spend!” - -But the man leaped up as swift as a swallow and darted past her in -a fury and he went to that cranny and searched in it and seized the -silver. Yet the woman was after him, too, and she caught him and held -him and hung to him as he ran. But she was not quick enough and never -quick enough for his litheness. He threw her aside so that she fell -upon the earthen floor, and the child still in her arms, and he ran out -shouting as he ran, “Cut me off twelve feet of it and the foot and more -to spare that is the custom!” - -This the pedlar made haste to do, and he took the silver coins quickly, -although indeed they were somewhat less than he had asked, but he was -anxious to be away and yet have his stuff sold, too. When the mother -came out at last the pedlar was gone and the man stood in the green -shade of the tree, the blue stuff bright and new in his two hands, and -her silver gone. The old woman sat afraid and when she saw the mother -come she began in haste to speak of this or that in a loud creaky -voice, “A very pretty blue, my son, and not dear, and a long summer -since you had a grass cloth--” - -But the man looked blackly at the woman, his face dark and red, and he -roared at her, still bold with his anger, “Will you make it, then, or -shall I take it to some woman and pay her to make it and tell her my -wife will not?” - -But the mother said nothing. She sat down again upon her little stool -and she sat silent at first, pale and shaken with her fall, and the -child she held still screamed in fright. But she paid no heed to him. -She set him on the ground to scream, and twisted up afresh the knot of -her loosened hair. She panted for a while and swallowed once or twice -and at last she said, not looking at the man, “Give it to me then. I -will make it.” - -She was ashamed to have another do it and know the quarrel more than -they did now, watching from their doors when they heard the angry cries. - -But from that day on the woman harbored this hour against the man. Even -while she cut the cloth and shaped it, and she did it well and the best -she knew to do, for it was good stuff and worth good care, still she -took no pleasure in the work and while she made the robe she stayed -hard and silent with the man, and she said no small and easy thing -about the day or what had happened in the street or any little thing -such as contented women say about a house. And because she was hard -with him in these small ways the man was sullen and he did not sing -and as soon as he had eaten he went away to the wayside inn and he sat -there among the men and drank his tea and gambled far into the night, -so that he must needs sleep late the next day. When he did so in usual -times she would scold him and keep him miserable until he gave over -for peace’s sake, but now she let him sleep and she went alone to the -fields, hard and silent against him whatever he might do, though her -heart was dreary, too, while she kept it hard. - -Even when the robe was done at last, and she was long in making it -because there was the rice to be set and planted, even when it was -done she said nothing of how it looked upon him. She gave it to him -and he put it on and he shined his ring with bits of broken stone and -he smoothed his hair with oil he poured from the kitchen bottle and he -went swaggering down the street. - -Yet even when this one and that cried out to him how fine he was and -how fine his robe, he took no full sweet pleasure in himself as he -might have done. She had said no word to him. No, when he had lingered -at the door an instant she went on with her task, bending to the -short-handled broom and sweeping about the house and never looking up -to ask if the robe fitted him or if his body was suited to its shape, -as she was wont to do if she had made him even so much as a pair of new -shoes. At last he had even said, half shy, “It seems to me you have -sewed this robe better than any robe I ever had, and it fits me as a -townsman’s does.” - -But still she would not look up. She set the broom in its corner and -went and fetched a roll of cotton wool and set herself to spinning it -to thread, since she had used her store in the making of the blue robe. -At last she answered bitterly, “At the cost it was to me it should -look like an emperor’s robe.” - -But she would not look at him, no, not even when he flung himself down -the street. She would not even look at him secretly when his back was -turned because she was so bitter against him, although her heart knew -the blue robe suited him well. - - - - -V - - -Through that day long the mother watched for the man to come home. It -was a day when the fields could be left to their own growing, for the -rice was planted in its pools, and in the shallow water and in the warm -sunlight the green young plants waved their newly forming heads in the -slight winds. There was no need to go out to the land that day. - -So the mother sat under the willow tree spinning and the old woman -came to sit beside her, glad of one to listen to what she said, and -while she talked she unfastened her coat and stretched her thin old -withered arms in the hot sun and felt the good heat in her bones, and -the children ran naked in the sunshine too. But the mother sat silently -on, twisting the spindle with a sure movement between her thumb and the -finger she wet on her tongue, and the thread came out close spun and -white, and when she had made a length of it she wound it about a bit of -bamboo polished smooth to make a spool. She spun as she did all things, -firmly and well, and the thread was strong and hard. - -Slowly the sun climbed to noon and she put her spinning down and rose. - -“He will be coming home soon and hungry for all his blue robe,” she -said dryly, and the old woman answered, cackling with her ready, feeble -laughter, “Oh, aye, what is on a man’s belly is not the same as what is -in it--” - -The mother went then and dipped rice with a gourd from the basket where -they kept it stored, and she leveled the gourd with her other hand so -not a grain was spilled, and she poured the rice into a basket made -of finely split bamboo and went along the path to the pond’s edge, -and as she went she looked down the street. But she saw no glimpse of -new blue. She stepped carefully down the bank and began to wash the -rice, dipping the basket into the water and scrubbing the grain with -her brown strong hands, dipping it again and again until the rice -shone clean and white as wet pearls. On her way back she stooped to -pull a head of cabbage where it grew, and threw a handful of grass to -the water buffalo tethered under a tree, and so she came again to the -house. Now the elder boy came home from the street leading his sister -by the hand, and the mother asked him quietly, “Saw you your father on -the street or in the inn or at anyone’s door?” - -“He sat a while at the inn drinking tea this morning,” the boy replied, -wondering. “And I saw his robe, new and blue, and it was pretty and our -cousin when he knew how much it cost said it had cost my father very -dear.” - -“Aye, it cost him dear, I swear!” said the mother, suddenly, her voice -hard. - -And the girl piped up, echoing her brother, “Yes, his robe was -blue--even I could see that it was blue.” - -But the mother said no more. The babe began to weep where he lay -sleeping in a winnowing basket and she went and picked him up and -opened her coat and held him to her breast, and she suckled him as she -went to cook the meal. But first she called to the old woman, “Turn -yourself where you sit, old mother, and watch and tell me if you see -the new blue of his robe, and I will put the meal on the table.” - -“I will, then, daughter,” called the old dame cheerfully. - -Yet when the rice was cooked and flaked, white and dry as the man loved -it, still he did not come. When the cabbage was tender and the woman -had even made a bit of sweet and sour sauce to pour upon its heart, as -he loved it, he did not come. - -They waited a while and the old woman grew hungry and faint with the -smell of the food in her nostrils and she cried out, in a sudden small -anger, being so hungry, “Wait no more for that son of mine! The water -is leaking out of my mouth and my belly is as empty as a drum and still -he is not here!” - -So the mother gave the old woman her bowl then and she fed the children -too and even let them eat of the cabbage, only she saved the heart of -it for him. She ate also after this, but sparingly for she seemed less -zestful in her hunger today, somehow, so there was still much rice left -and a good bowlful of the cabbage and this she put carefully away where -the wind would catch it and keep it fresh. It would be as good at night -as it was now if she heated it again. Then she gave suck to the babe, -and he drank his fill and slept, a round, fat, sturdy child, sleeping -in the strong sun and brown and red with its heat, and the two children -stretched in the shade of the willow tree and slept and the old woman -nodded on her bench, and over the whole small hamlet the peace of sleep -and the silence of the heat of noonday fell, so that even the beasts -stood with drooping, drowsy heads. - -Only the mother did not sleep. She took up her spindle and she sat -herself in the shade of the willow tree that cast its shadow on the -western part of the threshing-floor and she twisted the thread and -wound it. But after a while she could not work. Through the morning she -had worked steadily and smoothly, twisting and turning and spinning, -but now she could not be still. It was as though some strange anxiety -gathered like a power in her body. She had never known the man not to -come home for his food. She murmured to herself, “It must be he has -gone into the town to game or for something or other.” - -This she had not thought of, but the more she thought upon it the -more it seemed true that so he had done. And after a while her -cousin-neighbor came out to go to his fields and after a while his -wife awoke from where she had sat sleeping by a tree, and she called, -“Has your man gone for the day somewhere?” - -The mother answered easily, “Aye, he has gone to the town on some -business of his own,” and the cousin searching slowly among his hoes -and spades for what he wanted called in his thin voice, “Aye, I saw him -gay in his new blue robe and set for town!” - -“Aye,” said the woman. - -Now her heart eased itself somewhat, and she fell to spinning again -with more zeal, since the cousin had seen him set for town. He had gone -for a day’s pleasure, doubtless, flinging himself off for the day to -revenge himself on her. It was what he would do with his new gown and -that brass ring of his scrubbed bright and clean and his hair covered -with oil. She nursed her anger somewhat at the thought. But her anger -was dead, and she could not make it live again, because it was mingled -with some strange anxiety still, for all the cousin’s words. - -The afternoon wore on long and hot. The old woman woke and cried that -her mouth was dry as bark and the mother rose and fetched her tea to -drink, and the children woke and rolled in the dust a while and rose at -last to play, and the babe woke and lay merry in his basket, happy with -his sleep. - -Still the mother could not rest. If she could have slept she would -have, and on any common day she could have dropped easily into sleep -even as she worked, since she was so sound and robust that sleep came -on her deep and sweet and without her seeking it. But there was some -gnawing in her heart today that held her wide awake and as though she -listened for some sound that must come. - -She rose at last impatient with her waiting and weary of the empty -street that was empty for her so long as she did not see the one she -sought, and she took up the babe and set him on her thigh and she took -her hoe and went to the field, and she called to the old woman, “I go -to weed the corn on the south hillside.” And as she went she thought to -herself that it would be easier if she were not at the house, and the -hours would pass more quickly if she pushed her body to some hard labor. - -So through the afternoon she worked in the corn field, her face -shielded from the sun’s heat with a blue cotton kerchief, and up and -down she moved her hoe unceasingly among the green young corn. It was -but a small, ragged field, for all of their land which could bear it -they put into rice, terracing even the hillsides as high as water could -be forced, because rice is a more dainty food than corn and sells for -higher price. - -The sun poured down upon the shadeless hill and beat upon her and -soon her coat was wet and dark with her sweat. But she would not rest -at all except sometimes to suckle the babe when he cried, and then -she sat flat on the earth and suckled him and wiped her hot face and -stared across the brilliant summer land, seeing nothing. When he was -satisfied she put him down again to work once more and she worked until -her body ached and her mind was numb and she thought of nothing now -except of those weeds falling under the point of her hoe and withering -in the dry hot sunshine. At last the sun rested on the edge of the land -and the valley fell into sudden shadow. Then she straightened herself -and wiped her wet face with her coat and she muttered aloud, “Surely he -will be home waiting--I must go to make his food.” And picking up the -child from the bed of soft earth where she had laid him she went home. - -But he was not there. When she turned the corner of the house he was -not there. The old woman was peering anxiously toward the field, and -the two children sat upon the doorstep waiting and weary and they cried -out when they saw her and she said bewildered, “Your father--is he not -come yet?” - -“He has not come and we are hungry,” cried the boy, and the girl -echoed in her broken, childish way, “Not come, and we are hungry!” -and sat with her eyes fast shut against the piercing last golden rays -of the sun. And the old mother rose and hobbled to the edge of the -threshing-floor and called out shrilly to the cousin coming home, “Saw -you my son anywhere?” - -But the mother cried out in sudden impatience, “Let be, old mother! Do -not tell all he is not come!” - -“Well, but he does not,” said the old woman, peering, troubled. - -But the mother said no more. She fetched cold rice for the children and -heated a little water and poured it over the rice for the old woman -and found a morsel of some old food for the dog, and while they ate -she went down the street, the babe upon her arm, to the wayside inn. -There were but few guests there now, and only a scattered one or two on -his way home to some near village, for it was the hour when men are in -their homes and the day’s work done. If he were there, she thought, he -would be sitting at a table nearest the street where he could hear and -see whatever passed, or at a table with a guest, for he would not be -alone if he could help it, or if there was a game going on, he would be -in the middle of it. But although she stared as she came there was no -glint of a new blue robe and no clatter of gambling upon a table. She -went and looked within the door then, but he was not there. Only the -innkeeper stood resting himself after the evening meal and he leaned -against the wall by his stove, his face black with the smoke and grease -of many days, for in such a blackish trade as his it seemed to him but -little use to wash himself, seeing he was black again so soon. - -“Have you seen the father of my children?” the mother called. - -But the innkeeper picked at his teeth with his black fingernail and -sucked and called back idly, “He sat here a while in that new blue -robe of his this morning and then he went townward for the day.” And -smelling some new gossip he cried afresh, “What--has aught happened, -goodwife?” - -“Nothing--nothing--” replied the mother in haste. “He had business in -the town and it kept him late, I dare swear, and it may be he will -spend the night somewhere and come home tomorrow.” - -“And what business?” asked the innkeeper suddenly curious. - -“How can I know, being but a woman?” she answered and turned away. - -But on the way home while her lips called answer back to those who -called to her as she passed, she thought of something. When she reached -the house she went in and went to that cranny and felt in it. It was -empty. Well she knew there had been a precious small store of copper -coins there, and a small silver bit, too, because he had sold the rice -straw for a good price a day or two ago, being clever at such things, -and he brought a good part of the money back. She had taken it from him -and counted it and put it into the cranny and there it should be. But -it was not there. - -Then she knew indeed that he was gone. It came over her in a daze that -he was truly gone. She sat down suddenly there in the earthen house -upon the earthen floor and holding the babe in her arms she rocked -herself back and forth slowly and in silence. Well, he was gone! Here -was she with the three children and the old woman, and he gone! - -The babe began to fret suddenly and without knowing what she did she -opened her bosom to him. The two children came in, the girl whimpering -and rubbing her eyes, and the old woman came in leaning on her staff -and saying over and over, “I do wonder where is my son. Daughter, did -my son say where he was? A very strange thing where my son is gone--” - -Then the mother rose and said, “He will be back tomorrow, doubtless, -old mother. Lie you down now and sleep. He will be back tomorrow.” - -The old mother listened and echoed, comforted, “Oh, aye, back tomorrow -doubtless,” and went to her pallet, feeling through the dim room. - -Then the mother led the two children into the dooryard and washed them -as her wont was on a summer’s night before they slept, and she poured a -gourdful of water over each of them, rubbing their smooth brown flesh -clean with her palm as she poured. But she did not hear what they -said, nor did she heed the girl’s moaning of her eyes. Only when they -went to the bed and the boy cried, astonished that his father was not -come, “And where does my father sleep, then?”--only then did the mother -answer out of her daze, “Doubtless in the town, for he will come home -tomorrow or in a day or so,” and she added in sudden anger, “Doubtless -when that bit of money is gone he will be home again,” and she added -again and most bitterly, “And that new blue robe will be filthy and -ready for me to wash already, doubtless!” - -And she was somehow glad she could be angry at him, and she held her -anger, clinging to it, because it made him seem more near, and she -clung to it while she led in the beast and barred the door against the -night and she muttered, “I dare swear I shall be just asleep when he -comes pounding at the door, even tonight!” - -But in the dark night, in the still, hot night, in the silence of the -closed room, her anger went out of her and she was afraid. If he did -not come back what would she do, a lone woman and young?... The bed -was enormous, empty. She need take no care tonight, she might spread -her arms and legs out as she would. He was gone. Suddenly there fell -upon her the hottest longing for that man of hers. These six years -she had lain against him. Angry she might be with him in the day, but -at night she was near to him again and she forgot his idle ways and -his childishness. She remembered now how good and fair he was to look -upon, not coarse in the mouth and foul of breath as most men are, but a -very fair young man to see, and his teeth as white as rice. So she lay -longing for him, and all her anger was gone out of her and only longing -left. - -When the morning came she rose weary with her sleeplessness, and again -she could be hard. When she rose and he did not come and she had turned -the beasts out and fed the children and the old woman, she hardened -herself and over and over she muttered half aloud, “He will come when -his money is gone--very well I know he will come then!” - -When the boy stared at the emptiness of the bed and when he asked -astonished, “Where is my father still?” she replied sharply and in a -sudden loud voice, “I say he is away a day or two, and if any asks you -on the street you are to say he is away a day or so.” - -Nevertheless on that day when the children were off to play here and -there she did not go to the fields. No, she set her stool so that -she could see through the short single street of the hamlet if any -came that way, and while she made answer somehow to the old mother’s -prattling she thought to herself that the blue robe was so clear a blue -she could see it a long way off and she set herself to spinning, and -with every twist she gave to the spindle she looked secretly down the -road. And she counted over in her mind the money he had taken and how -many days it might last, and it seemed to her it could not last more -than six or seven days, except he had those nimble lucky fingers of his -to game with and so he might make more and stay a little longer, too, -before he must come back. Times there were as the morning wore on when -she thought she could not bear the old mother’s prattling voice any -more, but she bore it still for the hope of seeing the man come home -perhaps. - -When the children wandered home at noon hungry and the boy spied the -cabbage bowl set aside for his father and asked for some, she would -not let him have it. She cuffed him soundly when he asked again and she -answered loudly, “No, it is for your father. If he comes home tonight -he will be hungry and want it all for himself.” - -The long still summer’s afternoon wore on, and he did not come, and the -sun set in its old way, heavy and full of golden light, and the valley -was filled with the light for a little while, and the night came and it -was deep and dark and now she refused no more. She set the bowl before -the children and she said, “Eat what you will, for it will spoil if it -is left until another day, and who knows--” and she dipped up some of -the sweet and sour sauce and gave it to the old woman saying, “Eat it, -and I will make fresh if he comes tomorrow.” - -“Will he come tomorrow then?” the old woman asked, and the mother -answered sombrely, “Aye, tomorrow perhaps.” - -That night she laid herself down most sorrowful and afraid upon her bed -and this night she said openly to her own heart that none knew if he -would ever come back again. - - * * * * * - -Nevertheless, there was the hope of the seven days when his money might -be gone. One by one the seven days came, and in each one it seemed to -her in the midst of her waiting as though the day was come for his -return. She had never been a woman to gad about the little hamlet or -chatter overmuch with the other women there. But now one after another -of these twenty or so came by to see and ask, and they asked where her -man was, and they cried, “We are all one house in this hamlet and all -somehow related to him and kin,” and at last in her pride the mother -made a tale of her own and she answered boldly, from a sudden thought -in her head, “He has a friend in a far city, and the friend said there -was a place there he could work and the wage is good so that we need -not wear ourselves upon the land. If the work is not suited to him he -will come home soon, but if it be such work as he thinks fit to him, he -will not come home until his master gives him holiday.” - -This she said as calmly as she ever spoke a truth, and the old woman -was astounded and she cried, “And why did you not tell me so good a -lucky thing, seeing I am his mother?” - -And the mother made a further tale and she answered, “He told me not -to speak, old mother, because he said your tongue was as loose in your -mouth as any pebble and all the street would know more than he did, and -if he did not like it he would not have them know it.” - -“Did he so, then!” cackled the old mother, leaning forward on her staff -to peer at her daughter’s face, her old empty jaws hanging, and she -said half hurt, “It is true I ever was a good talker, daughter, but not -so loose as any pebble!” - -Again and again the mother told the tale and once told she added to it -now and then to make it seem more perfect in its truth. - -Now there was one woman who came often past her house, a widow woman -who lived in an elder brother’s house, and she had not overmuch to do, -being widowed and childless, and she sat all day making little silken -flowers upon a shoe she made for herself, and she could ponder long on -any little curious thing she heard. So she pondered on this strange -thing of a man gone, and one day she thought of something and she ran -down the street as fast as she could on her little feet and she cried -shrewdly to the mother, “But there has no letter come a long time to -this hamlet and I have not heard of any letter coming to that man of -yours!” - -She went secretly to the only man who knew how to read in the hamlet, -and he wrote such few letters as any needed to have written and read -such as came for any, and so added a little to his livelihood. This man -the widow asked secretly, “Did any letter come for Li The First, who -was son to Li The Third in the last generation?” - -And when the man said no, the gossip cried out, “But there was a -letter, or so his wife says, and but a few days ago.” - -Then the man grew jealous lest they had taken the letter to some other -village writer and he denied again and again, and he said, “Very well I -know there was no letter, nor any answering letter, nor has anyone come -to me to read or write or to buy a stamp to put on any letter and I am -the only one who has such stamps. And there has not come so much as a -letter carrier this way for twenty days or more.” - -Then the widow smelled some strange thing and she told everywhere, -whispering that the wife of Li The First lied and there had been no -letter and doubtless the husband had run away and left his wife. Had -there not been a great quarrel over the new robe, so that the whole -hamlet heard them cursing each other, and the man had pushed her down -and struck her even? Or so the children said. - -But when the talk leaked through to the mother she answered stoutly -that what she said was true and that she had made the new blue robe on -purpose for the man to go to the far town, and that the quarrel was for -another thing. As for the letter, there was no letter but the news had -come by word of mouth from a traveling pedlar who had come in from the -coast. - -Thus did the mother lie steadfastly and well, and the old woman -believed the tale heartily and cried out often of her son and how rich -he would be, and the mother kept her face calm and smooth and she did -not weep as women do when their men run away and shame them. At last -the tale seemed true to all, and even the gossip was silenced somewhat -and could only mutter darkly over her silken flowers, “We will see--as -time comes, we will see if there is money sent or any letter written, -or if he comes home ever and again.” - -So the little stir in the hamlet died down and the minds of people -turned to other things and they forgot the mother and her tale. - - * * * * * - -Then did the mother set herself steadfastly to her life. The seven days -were long past and the man did not come and the rice ripened through -the days and hung heavy and yellow and ready for the harvest and he -did not come. The woman reaped it alone then except for two days when -the cousin came and helped her when his own rice was cut and bound in -sheaves. She was glad of his help and yet she feared him too, for he -was a man of few words, honest and few, and his questions were simple -and hard not to answer truthfully. But he worked silently and asked -her nothing and he said nothing except the few necessary words he must -until he went away, and then he said, “If he is not come when the time -is here to divide the grain with the landlord, I will help you then, -for the new agent is a wily, clever man, and of a sort ill for a woman -to do with alone.” - -She thanked him quietly, glad of his help, for she knew the agent but -a little, since he was new in the last years to those parts, and a -townsman who had a false heartiness in all he did and said. - -So day had passed into month, and day after day the woman had risen -before the dawn and she left the children and the old woman sleeping, -and she set their food ready for them to eat when they woke, and taking -the babe with her in one arm and in her other hand the short curved -sickle she must use in reaping she set out to the fields. The babe was -large now and he could sit alone and she set him down upon the earth -and let him play as he would, and he filled his hands with earth and -put it to his mouth and ate of it and spat it out hating it and yet he -forgot and ate of it again until he was covered with the muddy spew. -But whatever he did the mother could not heed him. She must work for -two and work she did, and if the child cried he must cry until she was -weary and could sit down to rest and then she could put her breast to -his earthy mouth and let him drink and she was too weary to care for -the stains he left upon her. - -Handful by handful she reaped the stiff yellow grain, bending to every -handful, and she heaped it into sheaves. When gleaners came to her -field to glean what she might drop, as beggars and gleaners do at -harvest time, she turned on them, her face dark with sweat and earth, -and drawn with the bitterness of labor, and she screamed curses at -them, and she cried, “Will you glean from a lone woman who has no -man to help her? I am poorer than you, you beggars, and you cursed -thieves!” And she cursed them so heartily and she so cursed the mothers -that bore them and the sons they had themselves that at last they let -her fields be, because they were afraid of such powerful cursing. - -Then sheaf by sheaf she carried the rice to the threshing-floor and -there she threshed it, yoking the buffalo to the rude stone roller they -had, and she drove the beast all through the hot still days of autumn, -and she drove herself, too. When the grain was threshed, she gathered -the empty straw and heaped it and tossed the grain up and winnowed it -in the winds that came sometimes. - -Now she pressed the boy into labor too and if he lagged or longed to -play she cuffed him out of her sheer weariness and the despair of her -driven body. But she could not make the ricks. She could not heap the -sheaves into the ricks, for this the man had always done, since it was -a labor he hated less than some, and he did it always neatly and well -and plastered the tops smooth with mud. So she asked the cousin to -teach her this one year and she could do it thenceforth with the boy if -the man stayed longer than a year, and the cousin came and showed her -how and she bent her body to the task and stretched and threw the grass -to him as he sat on top of the rick and spread it, and so the rice was -harvested. - -She was bone-thin now with her labor and with being too often weary, -and every ounce of flesh was gone from her, and her skin was burnt a -dark brown except the red of cheeks and lips. Only the milk stayed in -her breasts rich and full. Some women there are whose food goes all to -their own fat and none to child or food for child, but this woman was -made for children, and her motherhood would rob her own body ruthlessly -if there was any need for child. - -Then came the day set for measuring out the landlord’s share of all -the harvest. Now this landlord of the hamlet and the fields about it -never came himself to fetch his share. He lived an idle rich man in -some far city or other, since the land was his from his fathers, and he -sent in his place his agent, and this year it was a new agent, for his -old agent had left him the last year, being rich enough after twenty -years to cease his labors. This new agent came now and he came to every -farmer in that hamlet, and the mother waited at her own door, the grain -heaped on the threshing-floor and waiting, and the agent came. - -He was a townsman, head to foot, a tall, smooth man, his gown gray silk -and leathern shoes on his feet, and he had a large smooth hand he put -often to his shaven lip, and when he moved a scent of some sort came -from him. The mother hung back when he came and when he called, “Where -is the farmer?” the woman waited and let the old mother pipe forth, “My -son he works in the city now, and there be only we upon the land.” - -And the woman sent the lad for the cousin and she waited silently, -coming forward to hand the man his tea but saying nothing but common -greeting, yet feeling his eyes somehow hot upon her bare feet and on -her face. And she stood by while the cousin measured off the grain -for her, and measured the share the agent took for his own, and the -woman was glad she needed to say nothing nor even come near to see -the weight, so honest was her cousin. But she saw the grain divided -and hard it was too, as it was hard for every farmer, to give to this -smooth townsman his own share in what they had labored on. But they -gave grimly, and so did she, knowing that if they did not they would -suffer, and besides the landlord’s share they gave the agent a fat fowl -or two or a measure of rice or some eggs or even silver for his private -fee. - -More than this, when all the grain was measured out the village must -set a feast before the agent and every house must give a dish. Even in -this lonely year the mother caught a fowl and killed it and cooked it -for the feast, steaming it gently and long until it was done and while -the shape was whole and the skin unbroken, yet was the flesh so tender -that when the first chopsticks touched it it would fall apart. The -savor of that fowl and its smell when it had cooked so many hours were -more than the children could endure and they hung about the kitchen and -the boy cried, “I wish it were for us--I wish we ever could eat a fowl -ourselves!” - -But the mother was bitter with her weariness and she answered, “Who can -eat such meat except a rich man?” - -Nevertheless when the feast was over she went to the littered table -where the men had sat and she picked up a bone left from her fowl and -a little skin was hanging to it and a shred of meat and she took it and -gave it to the lad to suck and she said, “Hasten and grow big, my son, -and you can eat at table with them too.” - -Then the boy asked innocently, “Do you think my father will let me?” - -The mother answered bitterly, “If he is not here you shall eat in his -place, that I swear.” - - * * * * * - -Thus the year wore on to late autumn. Almost the children had forgotten -that there had ever been another in the bed except themselves and -their mother, and even the old woman seldom thought to ask of her son, -because the chill winds set her old bones aching, and she had enough -to do to search for this warm spot and that out of wind and in the -sun, and she complained incessantly because the winds shifted so, and -because every year the sun seemed cooler than the year before. - -The boy worked daily now in small ways and took it as his duty. Every -day when there was no other task he led the buffalo to the hill lands -and let it feed on the short grass, lying upon its back the whole day -through, or coming down to leap upon some grave and sit there catching -crickets in the grass and weaving little cages for them out of stems of -grass. When he came home at night he hung the cages by the door, and -the crickets chirped and the sound pleased the babe and his sister. - -But soon the wild grass on the hills browned with coming winter and -the summer flowers among the grass bore seed and the byways were gay -with purple asters and with small yellow wild chrysanthemums, which are -the flowers of autumn, and it was time to cut the grass for winter’s -fuel. Then the boy went with his mother and all day she cut the dried -grass with her short-handled sickle and the boy twisted rope of grass -and bound what she cut into sheaves. Everywhere over all the mountain -sides there were spots of blue and these were people like themselves -cutting and binding the brown grass into sheaves. In the evening when -the sun set and the night air came down chill from the hill tops the -people all went winding homeward through the narrow hilly paths, each -loaded with two great sheaves upon a pole across the shoulder, and so -did the mother also, and the boy with two little sheaves. - -When they came home the first thing the mother did was to seize the -babe and ease her breasts of their load of milk and the child drank -hungrily, having had but rice gruel in the day. The old woman these -cold early nights crept into bed to warm herself as soon as the sun was -set and the little girl came feeling her way out into the last light of -day, wincing a little even in that pale light, and she sat smiling on -the threshold, rejoicing in her brother’s coming, for she missed him -now he had to work. - -So did the autumn pass, and here was the ground to be ploughed for -wheat and the wheat sown and the mother taught the lad how to scatter -it so that a passing wind would help him and how to watch the wind, -too, and not let the grain fall too thickly here and too scanty there. -Then the winter came when the wheat was sprouted but a little, and the -fields shrank and hardened in the oncoming cold. Now the mother drew -the winter garments out from under her bed where she kept them and she -sunned them and made them ready to wear. But the rough work of the -summer and the autumn had so torn her hands that even the coarse cotton -cloth caught at the cracks upon them and her fingers were stiff and -hard, although shapely still in the bone. - -Yet she worked on, sitting now in the doorway to be in the southern -sun and out of the sharp wind and first she tended to the old woman’s -garments, since she felt the chill so much. And she bade the old woman -stay in bed a day or two and take off the red shroud she wore, and -in between the stuff and its lining she put back the cotton wadding -she had taken out when summer came, and the old woman lay snug and -chattered happily and cried, “Shall I outlast this shroud, do you -think, daughter-in-law? In summer time I feel I shall, but when the -winter comes I am not sure, because my food does not heat me as once it -did.” - -And the mother answered absently, “Oh, you will last, I dare swear, old -mother, and I never saw such an old crone for lasting on when others -have gone the common way.” - -Then the old woman cackled full of pleasure and she cackled, laughing -and coughing, “Aye, a very lasting sort I be, I know!” and lay content -and waited for her shroud to be made warm for her again. - -And the mother mended the children’s clothing, but the girl’s garments -she must give to the babe, and the boy’s to the girl, so had they all -three grown in the year. Then came the question of what the lad would -wear to keep him warm. There was the man’s padded coat and there the -trousers that he had worn those three winters gone and he had torn them -and she had mended them at wrist and neck, and in the front was a long -tear where the buffalo’s horn had caught one day when he was angry at -the beast and had jerked the rope passed through its nostrils, so that -it tossed its head in agony. - -But she could not bear to cut them small to the lad’s shape. She turned -the garments over pondering and aching and at last she muttered, “What -if he should come--I will not do it yet.” - -But there the boy was not clad for winter and he waited shivering in -the chill of morning and evening, and at last she set her lips and -made the garments small for him and she comforted herself and said in -her heart, “If he comes we can sell some of the rice and buy new ones. -If he should come at the new year he will take pleasure in the new -garments.” - -So the winter wore on and it seemed to the woman that the man must -surely come at the new year, a time when all men go to their homes if -they still live and are not beggars. So when any asked her she began to -say, “He will come home for the new year festival,” and the old mother -said a score of times a day, “When my son comes at new year....” and -the children hoped too for the day. Now and again the gossip would -smile and say in her malice, and she was making herself a fine new pair -of shoes against the day of festival, “It is strange no letter comes -from that man of yours, and I know none comes, for the letter writer -tells me so.” - -Then the mother would answer with outward calm, “But I have heard -several times by mouth of one who passed, and my man and I have never -held with much writing and the good money that must go out for it, and -no knowing, either, what hired writers forget to say and it is all -written and it is public for the whole street to know when once it does -come to me. I am glad he sends no letters.” - -So did she silence the gossip, and so much she said he would come at -the new year that truly it seemed to her he would. The time drew near -and everyone in the hamlet was busy for the feast, and she must needs -be busy, too, not only for the children, to make them new shoes and -wash their garments clean and make a new cap for the babe, but she -must be busy for the man, also. She filled two great baskets with the -rice, all she dared to spare, and carried them to the town, and sold -them at but a little less in price than the man did, and this was well -enough, seeing she was a woman bargaining alone with men. With the -money she bought two red candles and incense to burn before the god and -red letters of luck to paste upon the tools and on the plough and farm -things that she used, and she bought a little lard and sugar to make -sweet cakes for the day. Then with what was left she went into a cloth -shop and bought twenty feet or so of good blue cotton cloth and to -another shop and bought five pounds of carded cotton wool for padding. - -Yes, she was so sure by now he would come that she even set her -scissors in that cloth and she cut it slowly and with pains and care -and she made a coat and trousers of the good stuff and padded them -evenly and quilted them, and so she finished the garments to the last -button she made of bits of cloth twisted hard and sewed fast. Then she -put the garments away against his coming, and to all of them it seemed -the garments brought the man more nearly home again. - - * * * * * - -But the day dawned and he did not come. No, all day long they sat in -their clean clothes, the children clean and frightened lest they soil -themselves, and the old woman careful not to spill her food upon her -lap, and the mother made herself to smile steadfastly all through the -day, and she told them all, “It is still day yet, and he may yet come -in the day.” There came those to the door who had been good fellows -with her man and they came to wish him well if he were come, and she -pressed tea on them and the little cakes and when they asked she said, -“Truly he may come today, but it may be his master cannot spare him -days enough to come so far, and I hear his master loves him well and -leans on him.” - -And when the next day the women came she said this also and she smiled -and seemed at ease and said, “Since he is not come, there will come -word soon, I swear, and tell me why,” and then she spoke of other -things. - -So the days passed and she talked easily and the children and the old -woman believed what she said, trusting her in everything. - -But in the nights, in the dark nights, she wept silently and most -bitterly. Partly she wept because he was gone, but sometimes she wept, -too, because she was so put to shame, and sometimes she wept because -she was a lone woman and life seemed too hard for her with these four -leaning on her. - -One day when she sat thinking of her weeping it came to her that at -least she could spare herself the shame. Yes, when she thought of the -money she had spent for his new garments and he did not come, and of -the cakes she had made and of the incense burned to pray for him, and -he did not come, and when she thought of the gossip’s sly looks and -all her whispered hints and the wondering doubtful looks of even her -good cousin, when time passed and still the man did not come, then it -seemed to her she must spare herself the shame. - -And she wiped her tears away and plotted and she thought of this to do. -She carried all the rice she could spare into the city and the straw -she had to spare and she sold it. When she had the silver in her hand -she asked for a paper bit that is as good as silver, and with it she -went to a letter writer, a strange man in that town she did not know, -and he sat in his little booth beside the Confucian temple. She sat -down on the little bench near by, and she said, “I have a letter to -write for a brother who is working and is not free to go home, and so -say what I tell you. He is ill upon his bed, and I write for him.” - -Then the old man took out his spectacles and stopped staring at the -passersby, and he took a sheet of new paper and he wet his brush upon -the block of ink and looked at her and said, “Say on, then, but tell -me first the brother’s wife’s name and where her home is and what your -name is too.” - -Then the mother told him, “It is my brother-in-law who bids me write -the letter to his wife and he lives in a city from whence I am but come -newly, and my name is no matter,” and she gave her husband’s name for -brother and the name of a far city she had known once to be near her -girlhood home, and then for her brother’s wife’s name she gave her own -name and where her hamlet was and she said, “Here is what he has to -tell his wife. Tell her, ‘I am working hard and I have a good place and -I have what I like to eat and a kind master, and all I need to do is to -fetch his pipe and tea and take his messages to his friends. I have my -food and three silver pieces a month besides, and out of my wage I have -saved ten pieces that I have changed to a paper bit as good these days -as silver. Use them for my mother and yourself and the children.’” - -Then she sat and waited and the old man wrote slowly and for a long -time and at last he said, “Is that all?” - -And she said, “No, I have this more to say. Say, ‘I could not come at -the new year because my master loves me so he could not spare me, but -if I can I will come another year, and if I cannot even so I will send -you my wage as I am able once a year, as much as I can spare.’” - -And again the old man wrote and she said when she had thought a while, -“One more thing there is he is to say. Say, ‘Tell my old mother I shall -bring red stuff for her third shroud when I come, as good stout stuff -as can be bought.’” - -So the letter was complete and the old man signed the letter and sealed -it and set the superscription and he spat upon a stamp and put it on, -and said that he would post it in the place he knew. And she paid his -fee and went home, and this was the thing she had plotted when she -wiped her tears away. - - - - -VI - - -Some seven days after that day a letter carrier who carried letters in -a bag upon his shoulder passed by, a new thing in these later days, for -in old days there were no such men, and to the folk of this hamlet it -was ever a magic miracle that letters could be come by like this, but -so they were, nevertheless. And now this man took a letter from his bag -and held it and he stared at the mother and he said, “Are you the wife -of one surnamed Li?” - -Then she knew her letter had come and she said, “I am that one,” and he -said, “Then this is yours and it is from your man, wherever he is, for -his name is written there.” So he gave her the letter. - -Then she made herself cry out and she summoned false joy somehow and -she cried to the old woman, “Here is a letter from your son!” And to -the children she said, “Here is your father’s letter come!” They could -scarcely wait until it was read, and the woman washed herself and put -on a clean coat and combed her hair smoothly, and while she did she -heard the old mother call out to the cousin’s wife, “My son’s letter is -come!” and when she had said it she laughed and fell to coughing and -laughing until the cousin’s wife across the way grew frightened at such -a turmoil in the weak old body and ran over and rubbed her back and -cried in her hearty kind way, “Good mother, do not let it kill you, I -pray!” And when the mother came out clean and smiling she said in her -same way, “Here be this old crone choking herself because a letter is -come!” and the mother made her smile shine out and she said, “So it has -and here it is,” and held the letter out for the other one to see. - -When she went down the street they all came crowding with her as she -went, for the lad followed grinning and saying to all who asked that -his father’s letter was come, and the little girl came after him, -clinging to his coat, and since it was winter still and little to be -done, the idle men and women followed, too, and they all crowded to the -letter writer’s house, who was astonished at such a houseful coming in -so suddenly. But when he heard what the matter was he took the letter -and studied it a while and he turned it this way and that and stared at -it, and at last he said gravely and as the first thing to be said, “It -is from your husband.” - -“That I guessed,” the mother said, and the gossip who was in the crowd -called out, “And what other man would it be, good man?” And all the -crowd roared with ready laughter. - -Then the letter writer began to read the letter to her slowly and -silence fell and the mother listened and the children and all the -crowd, and at every word he paused to explain its full meaning, -partly because it is true written and spoken words are not the same, -but partly, too, to show how learned he was. And the mother listened -as though she had never heard one word of it before, and she nodded -at every word, and when he came to that place where it said there was -money sent, the man raised his voice very loud and clear at such a -serious thing, and those in the crowd gaped and cried out, “But was -there money in it?” Then the woman nodded and she opened her hand and -showed the paper piece into which she had changed her own silver, -and she gave it to the letter writer to see, and he said hushed and -solemnly, “It is true I see a ten, and it must be it is worth ten -pieces of silver.” - -Then all the crowd must see it and there was a picture of a fat -whiskered general on the paper and when the gossip saw it she cried -out aghast, “Why, goodwife, how your man is changed!” for she supposed -it was a picture of the man himself, and none of them was sure it was -not except the woman and she said, “It is not my man, I know.” And the -letter writer guessed and said, “Doubtless it is his master.” And so -they all looked at it again and cried how rich and fed he looked. Thus -all the crowd were silent with wonder and with envy, and they watched -while the mother folded the bit of precious paper into her hand and -held it there closely. - -So was the letter read and when the old man had finished it and folded -it into its case again, he said gravely, “You are a very lucky wife -and it is not every countrywoman whose man could go into a great city -and find so good a place, or who if he did would send back his wage -like that either, and so many places as I hear there are in towns to -spend money in.” - -Then all the crowd fell back in respect for her, and she walked proudly -home, the children following her and sharing in their mother’s glory, -and when the mother was come she told it all to the old mother and -especially did the old soul laugh with pleasure to hear what her son -said of the third shroud and she cried out in her trembling, cracking -voice and struck her skinny knees with pleasure, “That son of mine! I -do swear there was never one like him! And doubtless that town stuff -is very fine good stuff.” Then she grew a trifle grave and she said -wistfully, “Aye, daughter, if it be as good as he says, I doubt I can -wear it out before I die. It may be that one will be my last shroud.” - -The lad looked grave, too, when he saw his grandmother look so, and he -cried loyally, “No, grandmother, it will not, for you have lasted two, -and this one cannot be as strong as two!” - -Then the old soul was cheered again and laughed to hear the boy so -clever, and she said to the mother, “Very well you remembered all he -said, daughter, and almost as if you read the words yourself.” - -“Aye,” said the mother quietly, “I remembered every word.” And she went -alone into the house and stood behind the door and wept silently, and -the letter and even the bit of paper that was the same as silver were -but ashes for all her pride. They were worthless for her when she was -alone; there was no meaning in them then. - -Nevertheless, the mother’s plot worked well enough and hereafter in -the hamlet there was none who mocked at her or hinted she was a woman -whose man had left her. Rather did she need to harden her heart toward -them now, because since it was known she had the paper money and that -there would come more next year like it, some came to borrow of her -secretly, the old letter writer one, and besides him an idle man or two -who sent his wife to ask for him, and the woman was hard put to it to -refuse since all in the hamlet were some sort of kin and all surnamed -Li, but she said this and that, and that she owed the money for a debt -and that she had spent it already or some such thing. And some cried -out at her when they talked together idly in a dooryard, and the gossip -said before her meaningfully how much a bit of cloth cost these days -and even a needle or two was costly and a few strands of silken thread -to make a flower on a shoe for color, and they all took care to cry if -she were there, “Well is it for such as you, and a very lucky destiny, -that you have no need to think thrice over a penny, while your man is -out earning silver and sending it to you and you have it over and above -what is wrest from the bitter land!” And sometimes a man would call, “I -doubt it is a good thing to have so rich a woman in our hamlet lest -the robbers come. Aye, robbers come where riches are, as flies to any -honey!” - -It seemed to her at last that daily this bit of paper grew more -troublesome, not only because of what the gossip said, and because this -one and that one among the men would ask to see it close, but because -she too was not used to money being of paper and she grew to hate the -thing because she was ever afraid the wind might blow it away or the -rats gnaw it or the children find it and think it nothing and tear it -in play, and every day she must look to see if it were safe in the -basket of stored rice where she kept it hid, because she was afraid it -would mold in the earthen wall and rot away there. At last the thing -grew such a burden on her that one day when she saw the cousin start -for the town she ran to him and whispered, “Change me this bit of paper -into hard silver, I pray, so that I can feel it in my hand, because -this bit of paper seems nothing when I hold it.” - -So the cousin took it and being a righteous honest man he changed it -into silver, good and sound in every piece, and when he was back at -her door again he struck each piece upon another to show how sound -all were. The mother was grateful to him and she said, although half -unwillingly too, except she did not wish to be thought small in mind, -“Take a piece of it for your trouble, cousin, and for your help in -harvest, for well I know you need it and your wife swelling with -another child.” - -But though he stared hard at the silver and sucked his breath in -without knowing he did and blinked his eyes once or twice with longing -he would not take it and he said quickly before his longing grew -too much for him, because indeed he was a good and honest man, “No, -cousin’s wife, for you are a lone woman and I am able to work yet.” - -“Well, if you need to borrow then,” she said and quickly took the -silver out of sight, for well she knew no man can look at silver long, -however good he is, and not grow weak with longing. - -In that night while the children and the old woman slept the mother -rose and lit the candle and dug a hole with her hoe into the hard earth -of the floor and there she hid the ten pieces of silver, but first she -wrapped them in a bit of rag to keep the earth from them. The buffalo -turned and stared with its great dull eyes, and the fowls woke under -the bed and looked out at her with this eye and then with that and -clucked faintly, astonished at this strange thing in the night. But the -woman filled the hole and walked a while on it to make it beaten smooth -and like the rest. Then she laid herself down again in the darkness. - -It was the strangest thing, but as she lay there awake and yet half -dreaming, almost she forgot it was her own silver she had buried and -silver she gained from the harvest she had cut herself, bending her -back in weariness to every handful of the grain. Yes, she forgot this, -and it seemed to her almost that the man had truly sent it to her, -and that it was a something over and beyond her own, and she murmured -to her heart, “It is in place of the silver bits he took and spent for -that blue gown, and better, for it is more,” and she forgave him for -that thing he had done, and so she fell into sleep. - -Thereafter when one asked to see the paper bit she answered tranquilly, -“I have changed it for common silver and spent it,” and when the gossip -heard it she cried out, her loose mouth ajar, “But have you spent it -all?” the mother answered easily and she smiled, “Aye, I have spent -it all for this and that, and a new pot or two and cloth and this and -that, and why not when there is more to come?” And she went in the -house and fetched out the new garments she had made for the man to -wear if he came home and she said, “Here is some of the cloth such as -I bought with it,” and they all stared at it and pinched the stuff and -cried out that it was a very good strong cloth and the gossip said -unwillingly, “You are a very good woman, I can swear, to spend the -money, even to a share, upon clothes for him, and not all for yourself, -or for the children.” - -Then the mother answered steadfastly, “But we are well content with -each other, my man and I, and I did spend some upon myself, for I gave -some to a silversmith and bade him fashion me some earrings and a ring -for my hand, for my man did ever say he wanted me to have them when we -had something over and to spare.” - -The old woman had listened to this all and now she cried out, “I swear -my son is just such a man as she says, and he is to buy me my third -shroud and of the best town stuff. A very good son, neighbors, and I -wish as good a one to each of you, and especially to you, cousin’s -wife, for I see your belly swollen as a ripe melon!” - -Then the goodwives laughed and went away again, one by one, for it was -evening time. But when they were gone the mother groaned within herself -at such a great tale as she had told, and she reproached herself and -said in her own heart, “Now why need I have told such a vast tale, and -could not be content with what was told already? Where shall I find -money for those trinkets? Yet must I somehow do it to save myself the -truth.” - -And she sighed to think of all the burden she had put upon herself. - - - - -VII - - -Once more the spring came on, and now the mother must set herself hard -to the land and she pressed the boy into the labor, too, and she taught -him how to drive the beast. Push the plough he could not, being so -light and small, but he could run behind the beast and beat its thick -slaty hide, and because its hide was so thick that all his strength -could not pierce it, she fastened a sharp peg into a bamboo length and -bade the boy beat with that to stir the beast out of its vast indolence. - -The girl child, too, the mother pressed into small simple tasks, for -the old woman grew more idle as she grew older, and forgetful so that -all she remembered was to know if she were hungry or athirst. Only did -she stir if the younger boy cried and wanted something in his lusty -way, for the grandmother loved this youngest one. So the mother taught -the girl to wash the noon’s rice at the pond, but she let her do it -first before she set forth to the fields, lest the child with her -half-seeing eyes fall into the pool and drown, and she taught her how -to cook the rice, too, against their coming, though she was so small -she scarce could reach the cauldron lid. She taught this little thing -even to light the fire and keep it blazing, and this the little girl -did very well, too, and she was patient when the smoke came out and -flew into her eyes and smarted on the lids, and she did not complain -at anything, for she understood that now the house was without the -father, and the mother must do for them all. Nevertheless when the task -was done she went into the house where it was dark even at noonday and -there she sat and wiped her streaming eyes with a bit of old cloth she -kept for this and she bore the pain as best she could. - -The babe could walk, too, now that spring was come, for in the winter -he had not tried, being burdened with his padded clothes so heavily -that even though he fell he could not rise until someone passed by his -way and set him right again. Now he ate what he would and thrived. But -the mother let him suckle still because it gave her some vague comfort, -although her breasts were well-nigh dry by now. Still it was a comfort -to her in some dumb sweet way that the child clung to her breast and -that he ran to meet her when he saw her coming home at night and cried -to drink what little was there for him. - -Thus the early spring came into full mild spring, and the mother -labored hard with the boy beside her all day long, and the fields were -ploughed somehow, if not so straight or deep as the man had ploughed -them, for it had been what he had always done in springs past, while -she sowed the seed. But beans were put in and young cabbage and the -radishes to be sold at market, and soon the rape budded again and sent -up its early heads and bloomed yellow and gold. So did she labor that -well-nigh she forgot the man, she was so weary every night, and so dead -in sleep she scarcely could rise again at dawn. - -But there came a day when she remembered him. - -Now the hour was come when the cousin’s wife was due to give birth and -she sent a child to go and call the mother, who was her friend and -nearest neighbor, and the child came to the field where the mother was -working, the sweet spring wind blowing her loose coat as she worked and -cooling her sweat as soon as it came. - -The child was a young girl, and she called out, “Good aunt, my mother’s -hour is come, and she says will you hasten, for you know how quick she -is, and she sits ready and waiting for you to catch the babe!” - -The mother straightened her bent back then and answered, “Aye, tell her -I will come,” and she turned to the lad and said, “Take my hoe and weed -these beans as best you can while I am gone. It will not be above an -hour or so, if she is as quick as she always is.” - -So saying she went across the fields and followed behind the girl who -ran ahead, and as the woman walked it came over her in some new way how -sweet a day this was. Living in this valley every day and laboring as -she must, she never thought to lift her head to see what the world was -about her, but her whole thought was on the land or in her house and -her eyes bent to them always. But now she lifted her head as she walked -and saw. The willows were full of tender leaves shining green, and the -white blossoms of the pear trees were full blown this day and drifting -in the winds, and here and there a pomegranate tree flamed scarlet in -its early leaves. The wind, too, was very warm, and it came in sudden -gusts and died again, and she did not know which was sweeter, the deep -warm silence when the wind died and the smell of the earth came up from -the ploughed fields, or the windy fragrance of the gusts. But walking -thus in the silences and in the sudden winds, she felt her body strong -and full and young, and a great new longing seized her for the man. - -Nearly every spring she had given birth, nearly every spring since she -was wed, but this spring was her body barren. Once it had seemed a -usual common thing to bear a child, and a thing to be done again and -again, but now it seemed a joy she had not seen was joy until now, and -her loneliness came over her like a pain and her breasts ached when -she thought of the thing, and it was this, that she would never bear -a child again in such a spring unless her man came home. Suddenly her -longing streamed out of her like a cry, “Oh--come home--come home!” - -Yes, she seemed to hear her own voice cry the words, and she stopped, -frightened lest she had called them out before the young girl. Yet she -had not cried aloud, and when she stopped there was but the voice of -the wind and the loud bright music of a blackbird in a pomegranate tree. - -And when she went into the dark room and saw the round plain face of -her cousin’s wife drawn out of its roundness and dark with sweat and -the usual laughter gone from it and the gravity of pain set there -instead, the mother’s own body felt full and heavy as though it were -she who bore the child and not this other one. And when the child came -and she caught him and wrapped him in a bit of cloth and when she was -free to go back to the field, she could not go. No, she went back to -her own house listlessly, and when the old woman cried, “What--is it -time for food? But I do not feel my hunger yet!” and when the girl came -running out of the house shading her eyes with her hand, and crying, -“Is it time already to light the fire, mother?” the mother answered -listlessly, “No, it is too early, but I am strangely weary today and I -will rest a while,” and she went and laid herself upon the bed. - -But she could not rest, and soon she rose and took up the little boy -and held him fiercely and she laid her bosom open and would have had -him suckle. But the child was astonished at her fierceness, being -unused to it, and he was not hungry yet and he was full of play, and so -he struggled and straightened himself and pushed her breast away and -would not have it. Then the mother felt a strange sullen anger rise -in her and she cuffed him and set him hard upon the ground and he -screamed and she muttered, “Ever you will suck when I will not, and now -when I will then you are not hungry!” - -And she was pleased in the strangest way, half bitterly, because he -lay and wept. But the old woman cried out to hear his roaring and the -little girl ran to pick him up. Then the mother felt her softness come -back in her and she would not let the girl have him, but she lifted him -suddenly herself and smoothed the dust from him, and wiped his tearful -face with her palm, and she blamed herself secretly with a sort of -shame that she had made the child suffer for her own pain. - -But the child never loved her breast so well again from that hour, and -so even that small comfort she had had was taken from her. - - - - -VIII - - -Now from her youth up this woman had been ever a creature of deep still -heats. She was not as some women are, quick to look at this young man -and that and appraising any man who passed. No, she was a woman of a -very deep heart, shy to the depths of it, and until she was properly -wed even when she was alone her thoughts had not turned to men for -their own sake, and if strange longings rose from within her deeply she -never looked at them to see what they were or why they came, but she -went on steadfastly to some task she had to do, and bore her longing -patiently and in a waiting silence. Only when she was wed and had known -a man for all he was did some clearness come to her, some distillation -of that deep dumb longing, so that even while she scolded her man -sometimes and was angry with him, she knew she could not live without -him. That thick, impatient longing in her could even heap itself like -thunderous clouds into a causeless anger against the man she loved -until it resolved itself and they clung each to each, and she was -satisfied in the old and simple way and so was made tranquil again. - -Yet the man was never enough. In himself he was never enough. She -must conceive by him and feel a child take life and shape within her. -Then was the act complete and while the child moved and grew she went -in a daze of happiness, being fulfilled. Yes, even when she bawled her -little angers at her children when they were under her feet and when -they cried and whimpered for this and that and were wilful as children -must be, yet she never saw the signs of new birth upon herself without -a sweet content of body, as though she were fed and rested and had -slept so that her body wanted nothing more. - -So had she ever loved a babe. Even so it had been in the old days when -she was a girl in her father’s house and in a village but a little -larger than this hamlet set in hills. Her father’s house was full of -little children and she was the eldest and like a mother to them; yet -even when she was weary with the day’s toil and the children running -under her feet were a trial to her so that she shouted at them to be -out of her way, yet never even when she shouted was she really out of -love with them. There was always something in their smallness that -weakened her heart, and many a time she would pick up a little child, -whether of their own house or of some neighbor’s, and hold him against -her and smell of him hard and fondle him as long as he would bear it, -because it was some passionate pleasure to her to feel a little child, -although she did not know why. - -So everything young and leaning on her drew her heart out. In the -spring she loved the young chicks and ducklings coming from the shell, -and when a mother hen forsook her nest for some cause and left the eggs -half hatched she it was who took the eggs and made a bag and slipped -them against her warm flesh and walked lightly and carefully until the -young chicks hatched. She it was who was most faithful to feed the -small silkworms, and took pleasure in their growing and she watched -them from the time when they were scarcely more than bits of living -thread until they grew great and fat, and when they burst their cocoons -and came forth moths and mated, moth to moth, she felt that seeking and -that satisfaction in her own body. - -Once when the children of her father’s house were grown out of babyhood -and she was nearly ready to be wed herself there was a certain thing -that happened to her, and it roused her as no man had ever done yet. -There was one little boy who was too young to walk, a neighbor’s child, -a round fat boy whose elder sister carried him about that whole summer -long, naked and caught in a strip of cloth upon her back. And sometimes -the mother, young then and waiting to be wed, would untie this strip -and take the child from the little girl’s back, and the little girl -would dart off to her play, glad to be released from her burden for a -while. - -It came to be so then that every day the young girl, the mother, -grew to look for this little moon-faced boy and out of all the other -children of the village he was the greatest joy to her, her favorite, -and she held him and smelled of his fat palms and took pleasure in his -round cheeks and in his little rosy mouth, and she carried him about -with her, setting him astride her sturdy hip, and when her own mother -cried, “What--had you not enough of children in this house so that when -I am through my bearing you must go and seek another’s child?” she -answered laughing, “I am never weary of babes, I think!” - -Soon without her knowing it this child came to rouse in her a longing -she had never known before. Sons she wanted as all women did, and she -had always taken it as her right that she would have sons one day. But -this robust and calm-eyed child roused more than wish of sons in her, -and what had first been play with the child became something more, some -deep and secret passion for what she did not know. - -She made excuse then when the child was in her arms to get away with -him alone and all the others were busy here or there in field or -kitchen, and the child’s sister was glad to be away, and the young -girl sat and held the fair sound child strained against herself. She -murmured to him and nursed him in her arms and felt this little, -fat, round body helpless against her. Sometimes, since he was still -nearly toothless, she chewed up rice or a cake for him and thrust the -food into his little lips from hers, and when he sucked it solemnly, -surprised at what he felt in his mouth suddenly, she laughed, but she -did not know why she laughed, for she was not merry, seeing there was -such a fierce, deep, painful longing in her which she did not know how -to ease. - -One day soon before her marriage day she had the child thus alone and -it grew late toward noon and the little girl did not come as early -as usual to take the child to his mother to be fed, and the child -fretted and tossed himself and would not be still. Then the young girl, -seeing his hunger, and driven by some dim fierce passion she did not -understand but only felt in her blood urging her on, went into her room -and shut the door fast and with trembling hands she undid her coat and -put the child to her own young slender breast and he laid hold on it -lustily and sucked hard at it. Then she, standing there staring into -his baby face, felt such a tumult in her blood as she had never dreamed -of and the tears came into her eyes and sounds rose to her lips, broken -sounds that were not words, and she held him strained against her and -did not know what it was she felt within herself, full and yearning and -passionate, greater than the child she held, greater than herself. - -Then the moment broke. Her little breast was empty and the child wailed -in disappointment and she fastened her coat again and was ashamed -somehow of what she had done and she went quickly out and the little -girl his sister came running in and seized him and ran with him to his -own mother. - -But to the young girl the moment was an awakening and more almost than -marriage. Ever after even the man she wed was most to her because he -was a part of motherhood, and not for his own sake only did she love -him. - - * * * * * - -So had it been with her in her raw youth. Now with her body ripe and -knowing all and herself in all her prime of womanhood she was left, -woman alone, and every day the children grew up taller and every day -they grew further from their babyhood they seemed less her own. - -The elder boy shot up tall and thin and silent, and he said little -but strained himself at heavy tasks. When the mother would have taken -up the rude wooden plough to carry it back to the house at the end -of the day, he seized it and held it like a yoke across his own thin -shoulders and staggered with it over the clodded earth, and she was so -weary oftentimes she let him do it. He it was now who pulled the pails -of water from the well and fed the buffalo, and he struggled his whole -share and more in the field, as though he were his own father. - -Yet in all this he strained away from the woman, his mother, in some -secret way, sharing with her in the labor most dutifully, and yet often -wilful too, and it seemed to her he was parted from her flesh in some -way she could not understand, not liking to be near her and standing -off as though there were some smell about her that he could not bear. -Oftentimes they quarreled over a slight cause, such as if she bade -him hold his hoe better and he would not but would hold it in his own -way, even though it was harder to wield when he held it so. Over such a -small thing they quarreled and over many other like small things. Yet -each knew dimly that this was not the true cause of quarrel either, but -some deeper thing which neither could perceive. - -The girl, too, was never any cause of joy to her, with her poor eyes -half blind. Still the child did her patient best and she complained -no more now as she once did, and now that the younger boy could walk -and run and loved best to be in the street brawling and playing with -others like him, the girl would come sometimes to the field where the -mother and the lad worked. But even there she was more care than help, -especially if it were in some field of small weak seedlings, for she -was so blind that when she would have pulled the weeds she did not see -them well and many a time she pulled a seedling, thinking it a weed, so -that the boy called out in anger, “Go home, you girl, for I do swear -you are no use to us here. Go and sit beside the old grandmother!” - -And when she rose at this, half smiling but deeply hurt too, he cried -at her again shrilly, “Now see where you tread, you clumsy thing, for -you are walking on the seedlings now!” - -So she made haste to get out of the field then, too proud to stay, and -the mother was torn between these two, her son and the poor half blind -girl, and she felt the hearts of both, the lad’s heart weary with -labor too bitter for his age, and the girl’s too patient with her pain, -and she said sighing, as the girl went away, “It is true, poor thing, -you are very little use, nor even can you sew with those eyes as they -are. But go you home and sweep the floor and set the food ready and -light the fire. Such things you do well enough. Watch the little one -and see he does not fall in the pond, for he is the boldest, wilfulest -of you all, and pour a little tea sometimes for the old one. There your -duty is and you are help to me there. And when I have a little time I -will go and seek a balm of some kind for your eyes.” - -So she comforted the girl, but the girl was little comfort to her, -sitting silent hour after hour and wiping her wet aching lids, and -smiling in her fixed and patient way. And looking at her sometimes -and hearing her lad’s angers and seeing the younger one’s eagerness -to be away at play, the mother wondered bitterly how it could be that -when they were babes they were so fair and pleasant to her, and now no -comfort. - -Yes, oftentimes in the evening this mother looked across the way to her -cousin’s house and envied it most sorely. There was the good and honest -husband, a plain and earth-soiled man, not clean and pretty as her man -had been, but still well enough and going to his daily work and coming -home to be fed and to sleep as men should, and there were his children -he begot regularly and well, and there the mother sat, easy and merry -and well content with her last babe upon her knees, a shallow merry -soul and her mouth always open and her tongue clacking, but kindly -and a good neighbor. Often she ran to share some bit of meat with the -mother, or gave the children a handful of fruit, or a little paper -flower she made for the girl to thrust into her hair. It was a good, -full, contented house, and the mother envied it, and in her the longing -grew, deep and sullen and unsatisfied. - - - - -IX - - -If she could have forgotten the man and so finished with him, if he -were dead and she had seen him buried in the earth and still and gone -forever, if she could have been a widow and known her life with the man -ended, it would have been easier for her. If the hamlet had known her -widowed and if she could have kept before her pure and strong that true -widowhood, and if she could have heard people say, when she passed or -where she knew it said, “A very good true widow is that wife of Li, now -dead. There he lies dead and buried and she goes steadfast and true to -him, such a one as in the old days would have had a marble arch put up -or at least an arch of stone for her honor.” If she could have heard -talk like this it would have been a strength to her and a thing to stay -herself by, and to this shape that people made of her she might have -set her heart and so lived better than she was because men thought her -so. - -But widow she was not, and often must she answer those who called to -ask her how her man did and ever must she lie and cheerfully and keep -him in constant mind through her very lies. They would call, “There -you are, goodwife, and have you had a letter of late or message by -some mouth to say how your man is?” - -And she, passing by with a load for market across her shoulder or -coming slowly home with empty baskets must answer often out of deathly -weariness, “Yes, by word of mouth I hear he does right well, but he -only writes me once a year.” - -But when she was come to her own house she was torn in two with all -her lies. Sometimes she was filled with sadness and loneliness and she -cried to her own heart, “How sorrowful and lone a woman am I whose only -man is one I must make for myself out of words and lies!” - -At such times she would sit and stare down the road and she would think -heavily, “That blue robe of his would show a long way off, if he had a -mind to turn to home again, so clear and fine a blue it was!” - -And indeed if ever she saw a bit of blue anywhere in the distance her -heart would leap, and if a man passed in the distance wearing a blue -robe she could not but stop what she did and hold her breath to see how -he came, shading her eyes against the sun if she were in the field, her -hoe dropped from her hand, while she watched if he came this way or -that or if he passed or if he went a long way off. And always it was -not he who passed, for blue is a very common color and any man might -wear a blue robe, if he be a poor and common man. - -But there were times when her lies made her angry at him and she told -herself the man was not worth it and if he had come home at one such -time as this she would have burst her anger full upon him and cursed -him soundly while she loved him because he made her suffer so. Times -there were when this deep anger lasted over days, so that she was -sullen and short with the children and with the grandmother and pushed -the dog away roughly with her hoe, although she grieved her own heart -the more when she was so. - -At one such time as this it came about that it was time for the rice -to be measured after harvest. Once more she had struggled through the -harvest and alone except for such help as the lad could give, and a day -or two from the good cousin, and the day came for the division of the -threshed grain. It seemed to the woman that day as though her longing -and her anger had made her heart like raw flesh, so that everything she -saw fell on it sorely as a blow, and things she did not see of common -times she saw and felt this day. - -And while she longed, there upon her threshing-floor beside the heaped -grain the agent stood, the landlord’s agent, and he was a tall man -dressed in a silk robe of gray, and his face square and large and -handsome in its bold way. He had his old manner she remembered, a -manner of seeming courtesy, but his eyes were full and the lids heavy -and half closed over them, and the woman knew from the way he stared at -her from under those heavy drooping lids that he had heard her tale -and how her husband was gone out to other parts and never had come -back. Yes, there was something today in her full heart that caught this -knowledge in him, and the truth was he was such a man as could not look -at any woman left alone and not wonder secretly what she was and how -her heart was made and how her body was shaped. There was a dog’s heart -in him, for all his big, good frame and his square full face and his -voice he made so hearty and frank. But in spite of his forced courtesy -and his free words the tenants hated him, and they feared him because -he had a high hard temper and this big body and two large, swift fists -that he clenched and held hard against his thighs if any argued against -what he said. Yes, and then he lifted the lids he drooped over his -eyes, and his eyes were terrible, shining and black and cruel. Yet -often they laughed at him, too, for if they gave him his fee without -quarrel, he made a joke or two to salve the taking, and they could not -but laugh at what he said, although with rue, for he had a way about -him somehow. - -So did he make a little merry on this day when he came to the mother’s -house where she lived alone without her man and he knew she did, and he -called out heartily to the lad, “I see your mother does not need your -father with such a man as you to tend the fields!” - -Then the boy swaggered his little lean body and boasted, shy and bold -at once, he was so pleased, “Oh, aye, I do my share,” and he spat as -he had seen men do, and set his arms upon his little bony thighs and -felt himself grown and fully man. - -Then the agent laughed and looked at the mother as though to laugh -kindly with her over this lad of hers, and the woman could not but -smile, and she handed him a bowl of tea she had poured out in common -courtesy as to any passing guest. And being so near his laughing eyes -she could not but look into them, and there was that great, greedy, -starving heart of hers showing in her own eyes without her knowledge -that it did. The man stared at her and scented her heat and he turned -hot and grave and when he took the bowl he touched his hand to hers as -though not knowing her hand was there. But the woman felt the touch and -caught its meaning in her blood like flame. - -Then she turned herself away shamed and would not hear what her own -heart said. No, she busied herself with the grain and while she did it -she grew suddenly afraid of her own self and she said to the lad in a -low voice, “Run to our cousin and ask him to come hither and help me,” -and to her heart she said, to still its wildness, “If he is here--if -our good cousin is here--” - -But the lad was proud and wilful and he argued, “I am here, mother, and -I will help you. What other do you need? See, I am here!” - -Then the agent laughed loudly and slapped his thick thigh and he took -secret advantage of the innocent lad and he cried, “So you are, my -lad, and true enough your mother needs no other man!” - -Then the lad grew the more bold being so encouraged and when his mother -said again, half faintly, “It would be better if our cousin were here,” -the boy caught the faintness and he cried, “No, I will not call him, -mother! I am man enough!” and he took up the scales and strutted to -fill the measure with the grain and the woman laughed uneasily and let -him be, and the truth was there was something in her, too, that pulled -at her to let him be. - -When the grain was measured out and she had made a measure full again -to give the agent for himself, that agent put it from him in a lordly -way and he smoothed his long straight upper lip and looking ardently -into the woman’s face--for who was there save these children and that -old woman nodding in her sleep under the eaves by the door?--he said, -“No, I will not have it! You are a lone woman now and your man gone -from home and all this is your own labor. I will take no more of it -than my landlord must have, or blame me if he does not. I will take no -fee from you, goodwife.” - -Then was the woman suddenly afraid in the midst of the sweet sick heat -that was upon her and she grew confused and pressed the fee upon him. -But he would not have it. He pushed the measure away, his hand on hers -while he did, and at last when he took the measure from her he poured -the grain back into the basket where she kept it stored, and he would -not have it. - -Nor had she strength to beg him any more. Under this man’s smooth -face and smiling ways, under that gray costly robe of his, there was -some strange and secret force that poured out of him into the shining -autumn sun and clung to her and licked about her like a tongue of -fire. She fell silent then and hung her head like any maid and when he -poured the grain back and bowed and went his way, laughing and bowing -and smoothing his long lip where there was no hair, she could not say -a word. She stood there in silence, her bare brown feet thrust into -broken shoes, one hand twisting the corner of her patched cotton coat. - -When he was gone she lifted her head and looked after him and at that -same instant he turned and caught her look and bowed and laughed again. -Yet, in such a way he went, and afterwards she wished a thousand times -she had not looked after him like that and yet she could not help it -when she did it. Then the boy cried out gladly, “A good man, mother, -not to take his fee! I never heard of such a good agent not to take his -fee!” And when she went into the kitchen silently, half in a dream with -what had passed, he following crying at her, “Is he not a good man, -mother, who wanted nothing for himself?” And when still she answered -nothing he cried peevishly, “Mother--mother!” - -Then the mother started suddenly and she answered in strange haste, -“Oh--aye, son--” and the lad prattled on, “So good a man, mother--you -see, he would take nothing from you at all, knowing how you are poor -now that my father is gone.” - -But the mother stood still of a sudden, the lid of the cauldron lifted -and still in her hand. She stared at the boy fixedly and her heart -echoed strangely, shamed and yet filled with that sick sweet fever, -“Did he want nothing of me?” Though to the lad she answered nothing. - - * * * * * - -Nor could the man forget the woman’s heat. For this excuse and that he -came back to the hamlet and now it was to make sure of some account -which he thought he had written wrong, and now it was to complain that -such a one had given a measure short and the landlord was angry with -him. Most often of all he went to the cousin’s house, which stood near -the woman’s, and he went to see of this and that, and now he brought -some new seed of a kind of cotton that was held very fine in other -parts or he brought a man with him carrying a load of lime or some such -thing to make the fields more fertile, and the cousin was dazed with -so much coming. At first he was afraid the agent had some evil purpose -toward him and then he grew anxious when nothing came out for him to -see, and he said to his wife, “It must be he has some very deep and -evil purpose if it is so long leaking out of him,” and he watched the -man anxiously and sat and stared at him, yet impatient, too, to be at -his work again that waited for him, and yet afraid to be lacking in -courtesy to one who could do him evil if he would. - -But neither cousin nor cousin’s wife saw how the secret eyes of the -agent went sliding under his lids toward the woman across the way, -and how if she were not there upon her threshold, he stayed but a -little while, and how if she were there he sat on and on, facing her, -and often he cried in loud and false good nature, “No, good fellow, I -have no errand other than this. I am but a common man, too, and I like -nothing better than to sit in an honest man’s dooryard and feel the -autumn sun upon me.” But all the while he stared across the way where -the woman sat spinning or sewing. - -Now this was the season when the land was sinking into quiescence for -the winter. The wheat was planted in the dry earth and waiting for a -rain to sprout it, and the mother took a little leisure and sat in her -doorway and mended the winter garments and made new shoes, for the -girl’s sight was not enough for this, and never would be. She sat there -in the full sun for warmth, half listening to the old woman’s talk and -what her children had to say to her, and half dreaming, and her lips -were tranquil and her skin warm and golden brown with the sun and her -hair shiny black with health and newly combed now she had the time -to do it every day, and these days she looked younger than she was, -although she was yet not thirty and five years old. - -Well she knew that man sat there across the few feet of roadway but she -would not look up and sometimes when she felt his look press her too -hard she rose and went into the house and stayed there until she had -seen him go. But she knew why he came and she knew he looked at her for -a cause, and she could not forget him. - -All through that winter she could not forget him somehow. At last it -grew too cold for him to come even for his purpose. When the snow fell -and when the winds came down bitter and dry out of the northwest, she -might have forgotten him. But she did not. - -Once more the new year came and she went into the town as she did every -year and sold some grain and changed her silver into paper and she went -and sought a different letter writer, and once more she had the letter -written as though the man sent it, and once more the hamlet heard the -news and knew she had the money from her man. - -But this time their fresh envy and all their talk and praise put -nothing in the woman’s empty heart. Not even pride could comfort her -this time. She listened to the letter read, her face quiet and cold, -and she took it home and that night she put it in the oven with the -burning grass. Then she went to the table in the room where there was a -small drawer and after a while she opened it and brought out the three -letters there, for so long had the man been gone now, and she took them -also to the fire and laid them on the flames. The lad saw it, and he -cried out astounded, - -“Do you burn my father’s letters then?” - -“Aye,” the mother answered, cold as death, her eyes on the quick flames. - -“But how will we know where he is, then?” the lad wailed. - -“I know as well as ever. Do you think I can forget?” the woman said. - -So she emptied her heart clean. - - * * * * * - -But how can any heart live empty? On a day soon after this she went -into the city to change again her bit of paper, for these days she did -not trouble her cousin often, having learned to be alone, and when she -had the ten pieces in her hand she turned to go and there a man stood -by the door upon the street, and he stood smiling and smoothing his -upper lip, and it was the landlord’s agent. - -Not since the late autumn had he seen her close as this, and there was -none near who knew them and so he stared at her boldly and smiling and -he said, “What do you here, goodwife?” - -“I did but change a bit of money--” she broke off here, for she had -been about to say on, “that my man sent me,” but the words stuck in her -throat somehow and she did not utter them. - -“And what then?” he asked her, his lids lifted and his eyes pressing -her. - -She drooped her head and strove to speak as commonly she did, and she -said, “I thought to go and buy a silver pin, or one washed with silver, -to hold my hair. The one I had grew thin from long use and broke -yesterday.” - -It was true her pin to hold her hair had so broken, and she said the -truth before she knew it, and turned to go away, ashamed even before -people who did not know her to be seen speaking to a man upon a town -street, and he was a man somewhat notable in his looks, and being -taller than most men and his face very square and pale, so that people -were already looking at them curiously as they passed. - -But the man followed behind her. She knew he followed behind her as she -went soberly and modestly down the way and she was afraid not to do -what she had said she would, and so she went to a small silver shop she -knew and stood at the silversmith’s counter and asked to see his pins -of brass, washed with silver. And while she waited she toyed a moment -with some silver earrings that were there and suddenly the agent came -up while she toyed and he pretended he did not know her and he said to -the silversmith, “How much are these earrings?” - -Then the silversmith said, “I will weigh them to see how much silver -is there, and then will I sell them to you honestly and fairly by what -they weigh.” - -And the silversmith let the pin wait a while, seeing this man was clad -in silk and a better purchaser, doubtless, than this countrywoman in -her blue cotton coat. So the woman could only stand and turn her head -away from those bold secret eyes and the man stood indolently waiting -as the silversmith put the rings upon the little scales. - -“Two ounces and a half,” the silversmith said in a loud voice. Then -lowering his voice he added coaxingly, “But if you buy the earrings for -your good lady, then why not add a pair of rings? Here are two to match -the earrings, and it will all be a fine gift, suited to any woman’s -heart.” - -The man smiled at this and he said carelessly, “Add them, then.” And -then he said laughing, “But they are not for a wife--the wife I had -died a six-month ago.” - -The silversmith made haste to add the rings, pleased at so fine a sale, -and he said, “Then let them be for the new wife.” But the man said no -more but stood and stared and smoothed his lip. Not once did this man -show he knew the countrywoman was there. He took the rings when they -were wrapped and went away. But when he had turned his back the mother -sighed and watched him half jealous for the one he had bought the -trinkets for, such things as she would have loved and in her girlhood -had often longed to have. And indeed they were the very things she had -said her husband bade her buy with the silver she spent, and the gossip -often asked these days, “Where are those rings you said you have? Let -me see what their pattern is.” And the mother was often hard put to it -and she said, “The silversmith is making them,” or “I have put them in -a certain place and I have forgot where they are for the moment,” and -many such excuses had she made until this last year when the gossip had -said with how great malice, “And do you never wear those rings yet?” -and then the mother answered, “I have not the heart and I will put them -on the first day he comes home.” - -So when she had bought the pin and slipped it through her coil of hair, -she turned home again thinking of the dainty silver things and she -sighed and thought she had not heart to take her hard-earned silver -and buy herself a toy, after all, seeing that doubtless it mattered to -no one how she looked now, and she would let be as she was. Thinking -thus and somewhat drearily, she wound her way out of the city gate and -upon the narrow country road that branched off to the hamlet from the -highway, and she thought of home and of the comfort of her food when -she was there, the only comfort now her body had. - -Suddenly out of the twilight of the short winter’s evening there stood -the man. Out of the twilight he stood, sudden and black, and he seized -her wrist in his large soft hand and there was no other soul near by. -No, it was the hour when countrymen are in their houses and it was -cold and the air full of the night’s frost and such a time as no one -lingers out unless he must. Yet here was he, and he had her wrist and -held it and she felt his hand on her and she stood still, smitten into -stillness. - -Then the man took the small parcel of silver he had and with his other -hand he forced it into her hand that he held, and he closed her fingers -over it and he said, “I bought these for none other than for you. For -you alone I bought them. They are yours.” - -And he was gone into the gathering shade under the city wall, and there -was she left alone, the silver trinkets in her hand. - -Then she came to herself and she ran after him crying, “I cannot--but I -cannot--.” - -But he was gone. Although she ran into the gate and peered through the -flickering lights that fell from open shops, she could not see him. She -was ashamed to run further into the town and look at this man’s face -and that in the dim light, and so she stood, uncertain and ashamed, -until the soldiers who guarded the city gate called out in impatience, -“Goodwife, if you are going out this gate tonight go you must because -the hour is come when we must close it fast against the communists, -those new robbers we have these days.” - -She went her way then once more and crossed the little hill and down -into the valley, and after a while she thrust the trinkets in her -bosom. The moon rose huge and cold and glittering as soon as the sun -was set, and when she came home the children were in their bed, and -the old grandmother asleep. Only the lad lay still awake and he cried -when his mother came, “I was afraid for you, my mother, and I would -have come to find you, only I was afraid to leave the children and my -grandmother.” - -But she could not even smile at his so calling the other two children -as though he were a man beside them. She answered, “Aye, here I be, at -last, and very weary somehow,” and she went and fetched a little food -and ate it cold, and all the time the trinkets lay in her bosom. - -When she had eaten she glanced toward the bed and by the candlelight -she saw the lad slept too, and so she fastened the curtains and then -she sat down beside the table and took the little packet from her -breast and opened the soft paper which enwrapped it. There the rings -lay, glittering and white, and the earrings were beautiful. Upon each -were fastened three small fine chains, and at the end of each chain -hung a little toy. She took them in her hard fingers and looked closely -and upon one chain hung a tiny fish and upon the second a little bell -and upon the third a little pointed star, all daintily and cleverly -made and pleasing to any woman. She had never held such pretty things -before in her hard brown palm. She sat and looked at them a while and -sighed and wrapped them up again, not knowing what to do with them, or -how to give them back to that man. - -But when she had crept under the quilt with the children she could not -sleep. Although her body was cold with the damp chill of the night her -cheeks were burning hot and she could not sleep for a long time and -then at last but lightly. And partly she dreamed of some strange thing -shining, and partly she dreamed of a man’s hot hand upon her. - - - - -X - - -She did not see the man again through the whole spring, although she -remembered him. She did not see him until a day in the early summer, -when the wheat was turning faintly gold, and she had sown her rice in -beds for seedlings, and it was sprouted new and green and set in small -blocks of jade near the house where it could be well watched by the old -grandmother against the greedy birds that loved its tenderness. And all -this time her heart lay in her hot and fallow. - -But there came a day in that early summer, a day windless and full of -soft new heat. The cicadas called their sharp loves and when they had -called past the crisis their voices trailed slow and languorous into -silence again. Into the valley the sun poured down its heat like clear -warm wine and the smooth warm stones of the solitary street of the -little hamlet threw back the heat again so that the air shimmered and -danced above them, and through those waves the little naked children -ran and played, their smooth bodies shining with their sweat. - -There was no little passing wind of any sort at all. Standing upon her -threshold the mother thought she had never felt such close and sudden -heat as this so soon in summer. The younger boy ran to the edge of the -pool and sat in the water there, laughing and shouting to his playmates -to come and join him, and the elder lad took off his coat and rolled -his trousers high and put on his head a wide old bamboo hat that had -been his father’s once and went out to the field of newly sprouted -corn. The girl sat in the house for darkness and her mother heard her -sighing there. Only the old woman loved this heat and she sat in the -sun and slipped the coat from her old withered frame and let the sun -soak down into her old bones and on her breasts that hung like bits -of dried skin on her bosom, and she piped when she saw her son’s wife -there, “I never fear to die in summer, daughter! The sun is good as new -blood and bones to an old dried thing like me!” - -But the mother could not bear the outer heat. Heat there was enough -inside her and her blood seemed this day to thunder through her veins -with too much heat. She left the house then saying, “I must go and -water the rice a while. A very drying sun today, old mother,” and she -took her hoe and on her shoulder slung her empty water buckets and so -walked down the narrow path to where a further pond lay somewhat higher -than the seed beds of the rice, and she walked gratefully, because -the air though hot was not so shut and lifeless as it had been on the -street. - -She walked on and met no one at all, because it was the hour after -noon when men take their rest. Here and there if a man had gone early -to his field he sought the shade, for, after all, the heat was too -great for labor, and he lay sleeping under some tree, his hat covering -his face against the flies, and beside him stood his beast, its head -drooping and all its body slack with heat and drowsiness. But the -mother could bear the heat because it came down out of the sky and was -not shut between walls or all in her own veins. - -She worked on a while then in her seed beds and with her hoe she cut a -little gate in the higher edge of the bed and she dug a small water way -to the pond, and then she went to the pond’s edge and with her buckets -slung upon the pole she dipped first one and then the other into the -water and then emptied them into the ditch she had dug. Over and over -she dipped the water and watched the earth grow dark and moist and it -seemed to her she fed some thirsting living thing and gave it life. - -Now while she was at this task she straightened her back once and set -her buckets down and went and sat upon the green edge of the pond to -rest, and as she sat she looked to the north where the hamlet was and -there she saw a man stop and ask the old woman something and then he -turned and came toward her where she sat by this pond. She looked as he -came and knew him. It was the landlord’s agent, and while he came she -remembered she had his trinkets still and she hung her head not knowing -how to speak of them without giving them back again, and not daring -now to go and find them and give them back to him in this full light of -day when any passing soul might see her do it and the old woman wide -awake, too, in the sun, and she was quick to see a thing she ought not. - -So the man came on, and when he was come the mother rose slowly, being -lesser in place than he and woman, too, before a man. But he called -out freely and he said, “Goodwife, I came but to look and see what the -wheat is this year and guess the harvest from the fields!” - -But while he spoke his eyes ran up and down her body, clad for the heat -in but a single coat and trousers of patched blue stuff worn thin and -close to her shape and his eyes fixed themselves upon her bare brown -feet and in fear of her own heart she muttered rudely, “The fields lie -yonder--look then, and see!” - -So he glanced over them from where he stood and he said in his -pleasant, townsman’s way, “Very fair fields, goodwife, and there have -been worse harvests than there will be this year.” And he took out -a little folded book and wrote something down on it with a sort of -stick she had never seen before, seeing he needed not to dip it in ink -at all, as the letter writer did, for it came out black itself. She -watched him write and half it made her curious and half it touched her -and made her proud to think so learned and goodly a man had looked at -one like her, even when he should not, and she thought she would not -speak of the trinkets this one time. - -When he had finished his writing he said to her smiling and smoothing -his lip, “If you have time, show me that other field of yours that -stands in barley, for I ever do forget which is yours and which your -cousin’s.” - -“Mine is there around the hill,” she said half unwillingly, and now her -eyes were dropped and she made as if to take the hoe again. - -“Around the hill?” the man said and then his voice grew soft and he -smoothed that lip of his with his big soft hand and smiled and said, -“But show me, goodwife!” - -He fixed his eyes on her steadily now and openly and his gaze had -power to move her somehow and she put down her hoe and went with him, -following after him as women do when they walk with men. - -The sun beat down on them as they went and the earth was warm beneath -their feet and green and soft with grass. Suddenly as she walked the -woman felt her blood grow all sweet and languorous in her with the hot -sun. And without knowing why, it gave her some deep pleasure to look -at the man who walked ahead of her, at his strong pale neck, shining -with sweat, at his body moving in the long smooth robe of summer stuff, -at his feet in white clean hose and black shoes of cloth. And she went -silently on her bare feet and she came near to him and caught some -fragrance from him, too strong for perfume, some compound of man’s -blood and flesh and sweat. When she caught it in her nostrils she was -stirred with longing and it was such a longing she grew frightened of -herself and of what she might do, and she cried out faltering, and -standing still upon the grassy path, “I have forgot something for my -old mother!” and when he turned and looked at her, she faltered out -again thickly, her whole body suddenly hot and weak, “I have forgot a -thing I had to do--” and she turned from him and walked as quickly as -she could and left him there staring after her. - -Straight she went to her house and she crept across the threshold and -none noticed her, for everyone lay sleeping. The heat of the day had -grown heavier as the afternoon wore on. Across the way the cousin’s -wife sat sleeping, her mouth ajar, and the last babe sleeping at her -breast. Here the old grandmother slept too, her head drooped and her -nose upon her chin, and her clothes slipped to her waist still as she -had sat in the sun. The girl had come out of the close room and lay -curled against a cool stone for a pillow and she slept, and the younger -lad lay naked and stretched to his full length beneath the willow tree, -asleep. - -The very day had changed. It was grown darker and more still and full -of deeper and more burning heat. Great clouds loomed swollen, black and -monstrous, up from the hills. But they shone silver-edged, luminous -from some strange inner light. Even the sound of any insect, the call -of any bird, was stilled in the vast hot silence of that day. - -But the mother was far from sleep. She went softly into the darkened, -silent room, and she sat herself upon the bed and the blood thundered -in her ears, the blood of her strong hungry body. Now she knew what was -amiss with her. She pretended nothing to herself now, as a townswoman -might pretend, that there was some illness she had. No, she was too -simple to pretend when well she knew how it was with her, and she was -more frightened than she had ever been in her whole life, for she knew -that such hunger as was in her now grew raving if it were not fed.... -She did not even dream she could repulse him, now she knew her own -hunger was the same as his, and she groaned aloud and cried to her -heart, “It would be better if he would not have me--Oh, I wish he would -not have me, and that I might be saved!” - -But even while she groaned she rose driven from off that bed and went -from the sleeping hamlet and to the fields along the way that she had -come. She walked along under the great, black, bright-edged clouds and -about her were the hills, livid green and clean against the blackness. -She went under such a sky, along the little winding turn the path took -where it turned past a small and ruined shrine, and there in the door -of the shrine the man stood, waiting. - -And she could not pass him. No, when he went inside and waited she -followed to the door and looked and there he stood inside the twilight -of the windowless shrine, waiting, and his eyes gleamed out of that -twilight, shining as a beast’s eyes, waiting, and she went in. - -They looked at each other in the dim light, two people in a dream, -desperate, beyond any power now to stay, and they made ready for what -they must do. - -Yet did the woman stop once, too. She looked up from her dream and she -saw the three gods in the shrine, the chief a staid old man staring -straight ahead of him, and by his side two small attendants, little, -decent gods of the wayside for those who paused in their journey for -worship or for shelter. She took the garment she had laid aside and -went and threw it on their heads and covered up their staring eyes. - - - - -XI - - -In the night of that same day the wind rose suddenly as a tiger’s roar -out of the distant hills, and it blew the clouds down out of the sky -where they had hung heavy and full of rain, their light long gone. And -the sudden rains poured and washed the heats out of that day. When at -last the mist was gone, the dawn, pure and cool, grew quiet and fell -from a gray and tranquil sky. - -Now out of that storm and chill came down from heaven suddenly, at -last, the old woman’s death. She had sat asleep too long, her old body -naked for the wind to blow upon when the sun went down, and when the -mother came home at twilight, silent, and as if she came from the field -and honest labor, she found the old woman in her bed and cold with -sudden chills and aches and she cried out, “Some wicked spirit has -caught me, daughter! Some ill wind fell on me!” And she moaned and put -out her little shriveled hand and the mother took it and it was dry and -burning hot. - -Almost was the mother glad to have it so. Almost did she rejoice there -was this thing to take her mind from her own heart and from the sweet -and evil thing that she had done that day. She murmured, “It was an -ill black sky--very nearly I came home to see if you sat under such a -sullen sky, but I thought you would see its hue and come in from under -it.” - -“I slept, though,” the old woman wailed, “I slept, and I slept on and -we all slept, and when I woke the sun was gone and I was cold as death.” - -Then the mother hastened and made hot water for the old woman and put -some ginger in it and hot herbs and the old woman drank it. Yet in -the night her dry fever grew and she complained she could not breathe -because some imp sat on her chest and drove his knife into her lungs, -and after a while she ceased talking and lay breathing roughly from her -pressed lungs. - -And the mother was glad she must not sleep. Through the night she was -glad she must sit beside the old woman’s bed and watch her and give -her water when she moaned for it and put the quilt about her when she -pushed it off and cried that she burned and yet shivered too. Outside -the night had grown black and mighty rains poured down upon the -thatched roof and here and there it broke through and leaked, so that -the mother must drag the old woman’s bed out from its corner where the -rain seeped in, and over the bed where the children slept she laid a -reed mat to hold the leaks off. Yet all these things she was glad to -have to do and glad to be so busy all night long. - -When the morning came the old soul was worse. Yes, any eye could see -it, and the mother sent the lad for the cousin and he came and the -cousin’s wife came and this neighbor and that and they all looked at -the old woman who lay now only partly knowing what was about her, and -partly dazed with her fever and the pain she had when she breathed. -Each one cried out what must be done and what remedy could be tried, -and the mother hastened here and there to try them all in turn. Once -the old woman came to herself and seeing the crowd gathered there, she -panted from her laden breast, “There is an imp sits here on me and -holds me down.... My hour--my hour--” - -Then the mother hastened to her and she saw there was a thing the old -soul had to say and could not get it out, but she plucked trembling at -the shroud she wore that was full of patches now, and she had laughed -when every patch was set in place and cried she would outlive the -garment yet. But now she plucked at it and the mother bent her head low -and the old woman gasped, “This shroud--all patched--my son--” - -The crowd stared to hear these words and looked wondering at each -other, but the elder lad said quickly, “I know what she wants, mother. -She wants her third shroud new to lie in, the one my father said he -would send, and she ever said she would outlive this one she has now.” - -The old woman’s face lit faintly then and they all cried out who heard -it, “How stout an old soul is this!” and they said, “Well, here is a -very curious brave old woman, and she will have her third shroud as she -ever said she would!” - -And some dim, dying merriment came on the old woman’s owlish sunken -face and she gasped once more, “I will not die till it is made and on--” - -In greatest haste then was the stuff bought, and the cousin went to buy -it and the mother told him, “Buy the very best you can of stout red -cotton stuff and tomorrow I will pay you if you have the silver by you -now.” For she had determined that the old woman would have the very -best, and that night when the house was still she dug into the earth -and got the silver out that she had hid there and she took out what was -needful to send the old mother to her death content. - -And indeed, it seemed as if the thing she would not think of now, the -memory of an hour she drove into her secret places, busying herself and -glad to be so busy, it seemed as if this waiting memory made her kind -and eager to be spent for these who were hers. Somehow it eased her of -that secret hour to do her scrupulous best now. For these two nights -she slept none at all, wearying herself eagerly, nor was she ever angry -at the children, and she was most gentle to the old and dying woman. -When the cousin fetched the cloth she held it to the old dying eyes and -she said, speaking loudly now, for the old woman grew deaf and blind -more quickly every hour, “Hold hard, old mother, till I have it made!” - -And the old soul said, bravely, “Aye--I will not die!” though she had -not breath for any speech now and scarcely any breath at all, so that -every one she drew came screeching through her lungs pitifully, very -hard to draw. - -Then the mother made haste with her needle, and she made the garments -of the bright good stuff, red as a bride’s coat, and the old woman lay -watching her, her dim eyes fixed upon the stuff where it glowed in the -mother’s lap. She could not eat now or swallow any food or drink, not -even the warm human milk one kindly woman milked from her own breast -with a bowl, since sometimes this good milk will save an old dying man -or woman. She clung but to this scanty bit of air, waiting. - -And the mother sewed and sewed, and the neighbors brought in food so -that she need not stop for anything but could sew on. In one day and -a part of the night it was done, and the cousin and the cousin’s wife -stood by to see it and a neighbor or two, and indeed the whole hamlet -did not sleep, but stayed awake to wonder if the mother would win that -race, or death. - -But it was done at last, the scarlet burial robes were done, and the -cousin lifted the old body and the mother and the cousin’s wife drew -on the fine new garments on the old and withered limbs, brown now and -dry as old sticks of some dead tree. But the old soul knew when it was -finished. Speak she could not, but she lay and drew one last rattling -breath or two, and opened wide her eyes and smiled her toothless smile, -knowing she had lived through to her third shroud, which was her whole -desire, and so she died triumphantly. - - * * * * * - -Yet when the burial day was over and the need for being busy was past, -still the mother busied herself. She labored as she never had upon the -land and when the lad would do a thing she had begun she cried roughly, -“Let me do it--I miss the old mother sorely and more sorely than I -thought I could, and I blame myself that I did not go home that day and -see if she were warm when the storm came up and covered the sun.” - -And she let it be thought through the hamlet that she sorrowed for the -old woman gone, and blamed herself, and many praised her for her sorrow -and said, “How good a daughter-in-law to mourn like this!” And they -comforted her and said, “Do not mourn so, goodwife. She was very old -and her life ended, and when the hour is come that has been set for -each of us before ever we can walk or talk, then what need of mourning? -You have your man alive yet, and you have your two sons. Take heart, -goodwife.” - -But it was an ease to her too to have every cause to cover up her fear -and melancholy. For she had cause to be afraid, and she had time now, -even while she worked upon her land, to take out of her heart that fear -which had been hiding there ever since the hour in the rising storm. -Glad she was all these days that she had been in such haste, glad even -for the old woman’s death, and to herself she thought most heavily, “It -is better that the old soul is dead and cannot know what is to come if -it must come.” - -One month passed and she was afraid. Two months passed and three and -harvest came, the grain was threshed, and what had been fear beneath -her labor day by day was now a certainty. There was no more to doubt -and she knew the worst had befallen her, mother of sons, goodwife -honored in her hamlet, and she cursed the day of the storm and her own -foolish heats. Well she might have known that with her own body all hot -and open and waiting as it had been, her mind all eaten up with one -hunger, well she might have known it was such a moment as must bear -fruit. And the man’s body, too, so strong and good and full of its own -power--how had she ever dreamed it could be otherwise? - -Here was strange motherhood now that must be so secret and watched with -such dismay in the loneliness of the night while the children slept. -And however she might be sickened she dared not show it. Strange it was -that when she bore her proper children she was not sick at all, but now -her food turned on her when she ate a mouthful. It was as though this -seed in her was so strong and lusty that it grew like a foul weed in -her, doing what it would with her body ruthlessly, and she could not -let a sign of it be seen. - -Night after night she sat up in her bed, too ill at ease to lie down, -and she groaned within herself, “I wish I were alone again and had not -this thing here in me--I wish I were alone again as I was, and I would -be content--” and it came to her often and wildly that she would hang -herself there upon the bedpost. But yet she could not. There were her -own good children, and she looked upon their sleeping faces and she -could not, and she could not bear to think of the neighbors’ looks on -her dead body when they searched her for her cause of death. There was -nothing then save that she must live on. - -Yet in spite of all this pain the woman was not healed of her desire -toward that townsman, though she often hated while she longed for him. -Rather did it seem he held her fast now by this secret hold that grew -within her. She had repented that she ever yielded to him and yet she -yearned for him often day and night. In the midst of her true shame and -all her wishing she had withstood him, she yearned for him still. Yet -she was ashamed to seek him out, and fearful too lest she be seen, and -she could only wait again until he came, because it seemed to her if -she went and sought him then she was lost indeed, and after that stuff -for any man to use. - -But here was a strange thing. The man was finished with her. He came no -more throughout that whole summer until the grain was reaped when he -must come, and he came hard and quarrelsome as he used to be and he -took his full measure of his grain so that the lad cried wondering, -“How have we made him angry, mother, who was so kind to us last year?” - -And the woman answered sullenly, “How can I know?” But she knew. When -he would not look at her, she knew. - -Not even on the day of harvest feasting would he look at her, although -she washed herself freshly and combed her hair and smoothed it down -with oil and put on a clean coat and trousers and her one pair of -stockings and the shoes she had made for the old woman’s burial day. -So garbed and her cheeks red with sick hope and shyness and her eyes -bright with all her desperate secret fears, she hurried here and there -busying herself before his eyes about the feast, and she spoke to this -one and to that, forcing herself to be loud and merry. The women stared -astonished at her flaming cheeks and glittering eyes and at her loud -voice and laughter, she who used to be so quiet where men were. - -But for all this the man did not look at her. He drank of the new -wine made of rice and as he tasted it he cried loudly to the farmers, -“I will have a jug or two of that for myself, if you can spare it, -farmers, and set the clay seal on well and sound to keep it sweet.” But -he never looked at her, or if she came before him his eyes passed over -her as they might over any common country wife whose name he did not -know. - -Then the woman could not bear it. Yes, although she knew she should be -glad he did not want her any more, she could not bear it. She went home -in the middle of that day of feasting and she searched from out their -secret place those trinkets he had given her once and she was trembling -while she searched. She hung the rings in her ears, taking out the -little wires she had worn there all these years to keep the holes open, -and she pushed the rings over her hard strong fingers, and once more -she made a chance to see him, standing on the edge of the feast where -women stood to serve the men who ate. There the gossip sat among them, -gay for the day in her new shoes, and her feet thrust out to show them -off, and she cried out, “Well, goodwife, there you are and you did buy -your trinkets after all and wear them too, although your man is still -away!” - -She cried so loudly that all the women turned to look and laugh and -the men even turned to see and smile a little, too, at the women’s -merriment. Then the agent, hearing the laughter and the witty sayings -that arose against the woman, looked up carelessly and haughtily from -his bowl, his jaws moving as he looked, for his mouth was full of food, -and he said carelessly and loud enough for her to hear, “What woman is -it?” And his eyes fell on her scarlet face and he looked away as if he -had never known her and fell to his bowl again. And the woman, feeling -the scarlet draining from her face too fast, crept out and ran away and -they laughed to see her run for shame at all their merriment. - -From that day on the mother kept out of the way of others and she -stayed alone with her children, and hid the growing of the wild thing -within her. Yet she pondered day and night what she could do. Outwardly -she worked as she ever had, storing the grain and setting all in order -for the winter, and when the festival of mid-autumn came and the hamlet -feasted and each house had its own joy and the little street was merry -with the pleasure and rejoicing and the houses full of grain and food, -the mother, though she had no joy, yet made a few small moon cakes for -her own children, too. When the moon rose on the night of the feast, -they ate the cakes upon the threshing-floor and under the willow trees -and saw the full moon shining down as bright as any sun almost. - -But they ate gravely and it seemed the children felt their own lack -and the mother’s lack of joy, and at last the eldest said, solemnly, -“Sometimes I think my father must be dead because he never comes.” - -The mother started then and said quickly, “Evil son you be to speak of -such a thing as your own father’s death!” - -But a thought had come to her. - -And the lad said again, “Sometimes I think I will start forth seeking -for him. I might go when the wheat is sown this year, if you will give -me a little silver, and I can tie my winter clothes upon my back, if it -be I am delayed in finding him.” - -Then the mother grew afraid and she cried to turn his mind away, “Eat -another little cake, my son, and wait another year or so. What would -I do if you went away and did not come back either? Wait until the -younger son is large enough to fill your place.” - -But the younger son cried stoutly, being wilful always when he had a -wish to make, “But if my brother goes, I will go too,” and he set his -little red lips pouting and he stared angrily at his mother. Then the -mother said reproachfully to the eldest, “There--you see what you do -when you say such things and set his mind on wandering!” And she would -not hear any more of it. - -But the thought clung in her mind, and afterwards she pondered on it. -Here was she alone now these five years. Five years--and would not a -man have come long since if he were coming? Five years gone--and he -must be dead. It must be she was widow, perhaps a widow years long, and -never knew it. And the landlord’s agent was not wed. She was widow and -he not wed, for she had heard him say that his wife was dead last year -but she had not heeded, for what was it to her then, who was not widow? -Yes, she must be widow. That night she watched the great moon set -high in the heavens and she watched far into the night, the children -sleeping and all the hamlet sleeping save a dog here and there barking -at the enormous moon, and more and more it seemed to her she must be -widow, and if she were--if she were wed as soon as he would say, would -it be soon enough? - -And in the strangest way the thing hastened upon her. The lad would -not forget his plan and he worked feverishly to plough the fields and -sow the wheat and when it was done he would have set out that very day -to find his father. Tall the lad was now as his father had been almost, -and lean and hard as bamboo and as supple, and no longer any little -child to bear refusal and he was quiet and stubborn in his nature, -never forgetting a plan he made, and he said, “Let me go now and see -where my father is--give me the name of the city where he lives and the -house where he works!” - -Then in despair the mother said to put him off, “But I burned those -letters and now must we wait until the new year comes when he will send -another.” - -And he cried, “Yes, but you said you knew!” - -And she said hastily, “So I thought I did, but what with this and that -and the old mother’s dying, I have forgot again, and I know I have -forgot, because when she lay dying, I would have sent a letter to -him and I could not because I had forgot.” And when he looked at her -reproachfully, scarcely believing her, she cried out angrily, “And how -did I know you would want to go and leave it all on me now when you are -just old enough to be some worth? I never dreamed that you would leave -your mother, and I know a letter will come at the new year as it always -has.” - -So the lad could but put aside his wish then for the time and he waited -in his sullen humor, for he had set his heart to see his father. -Scarcely could he remember him, but he seemed to remember him as a -goodly merry man and the lad longed after him for in these days he did -not love his mother well because she seemed always out of temper with -him and not understanding of any speech, and he longed for his father. - -At last the mother did not know what to do, except that something she -must do and quickly, for even if the letter was not written at new year -time, the lad would worry at her and sooner or later she must tell him -all the truth and how would she ever make him see how what had been a -little lie at first to save her pride as woman, had grown great and -firm now with its roots in years, and very hard to change? - -And then she tried to comfort herself again, and to say the man must -be dead. Whoever heard of any man who would not come back sometimes to -his land and his sons and his old home, if he yet lived? He was dead. -She was sure he was dead, and so saying many times, sureness came into -her heart and she believed him dead and there was needed but an outward -sign to satisfy the lad and those who were in the hamlet. - -Once more she went into the town then on this old task, and she went -and sought a new letter writer this time, whom she had never seen -before, and she sighed and said, “Write to my brother’s wife and say -her husband is dead. And how did he die? He was caught in a burning -house, for the house where he lived caught on fire from a lamp turned -over by some slave, and there he burned up in his sleep and even his -ashes are lost so there is no body to send home.” - -And the letter writer wrote her own name for the sister’s name and she -gave a false name as of some stranger who wrote to tell the news and -for a little more he wrote the name of some other town than this, and -he scented something strange here, but he let it pass, too, since it -was none of his affair and he had silver here to pay for silence. - -So was the woman saved. But she could not wait to finish her salvation. -No, she must let the landlord’s agent know somehow, and she went here -and there and asked where the landlord’s old home was, where he did not -live now but where the agent doubtless was well known. And she grew -heedless in her anxiety to be saved, and she ran there and it seemed -the gods were with her on that day and aided her, for there he came -alone and she met him at the gate of the house and as he was ready to -turn in to it. Then she cried out and laid her hand upon his arm, and -he looked down at her and at her hand upon his arm and he said, “What -is it, woman?” - -And she whispered, “Sir, I am widowed--I have but heard this day I am -widowed!” - -And he shook her hand off and he said loudly, “What is that to me!” And -when she looked at him painfully he said roughly, “I paid you--I paid -you very well!” And suddenly someone he knew called out from the street -and laughed and said, “How now, good fellow? And a very pretty, lusty -goodwife, too, to lay hold on a man thus!” - -But the man called back, scarcely lifting those heavy lids of his, and -he said coldly, “Aye--if you like them coarse and brown, but I do not!” -And he went on his way. - -She stood there then astonished and ashamed and understanding nothing. -But how had she been paid? What had he ever given her? And suddenly she -remembered the trinkets he had given her. That was her pay! Yes, by -those small worthless trinkets he held himself free of all that he had -done. - - * * * * * - -What could she do, then, knowing all? She set her feet steadfastly upon -the road to home, her heart deathly still within her, and she said over -and over, “It is not time to weep yet--the hour is not come yet when -I may weep.” And she would not let her weeping come. No, the weeping -gathered in her great and tremulous but she would not weep. She held -her heart hard and silent for a day or two, until the news came, the -letter she had written, and she took it to the reader in the hamlet, -and she said steadily as she gave it to him, “I fear there is ill news -in it, uncle--it is come out of time.” - -Then the old man took it and he read it and started and he cried, “It -is bad news, goodwife--be ready!” - -“Is he ill?” she said in her same steady way. - -And the old man laid the letter down and took the spectacles from his -eyes and he answered solemnly, staring at her, “Dead!” - -Then the mother threw her apron over her head and she wept. Yes, she -could weep now and she wept, safely, and she wept on and on as though -she knew him truly dead. She wept for all her lonely years and because -her life had been so warped and lone and she wept because her destiny -had been so ill and the man gone, and she wept because she dared not -bear this child she had in her, and last she wept because she was a -woman scorned. All the weeping she had been afraid to do lest child -hear her or neighbor, now she could weep out and none need know how -many were the sorrows that she wept. - -The women of the hamlet came running out to comfort her when they heard -the news and they comforted her and cried out she must not fall ill -with weeping, for there were her children still and the two good sons, -and they went and fetched the sons and led them to her for comfort, and -the two lads stood there, the eldest silent, pale as though in sudden -illness, and the youngest bellowing because his mother wept. - -Suddenly in the midst of the confusion a loud howl arose and a noisier -weeping than the mother’s, and it was the gossip’s, who was suddenly -overcome with all the sorrow round about her, and the great oily tears -ran down her cheeks and she sobbed loudly, “Look at me, poor soul--I -am worse off than you, for I have no son at all--not one! I am more -piteous than you, goodwife, and worse than any woman I ever saw for -sorrow!” And her old sorrow came up in her so fresh and new that all -the women were astonished and they turned to comfort her, and in the -midst of the fray the mother went home, her two sons after her, weeping -silently as she went, for she could not stay her weeping. Yes, she sat -herself down and wept at her own door, and the elder lad wept silently -a little too, now, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, and the -little boy wept on, not understanding what it meant to have his father -dead, since he could not remember what the father was, and the girl -wept and pressed her hands against her eyes and moaned softly and she -said, “I must weep because my father is dead--my tears burn me so--yet -must I weep for my dead father!” - -But the mother could not weep to any end, and she knew she could not -until she had done what she must do. So for the time she ceased her -weeping and comforted them somewhat with her own silence while she -thought what she would do. - -She would have said there was no path for her to turn, unless to death, -but there was one way, and it was to tear from out her body this greedy -life she felt there growing. But she could not do it all alone. There -must be one to aid her, and there was none to turn to save her cousin’s -wife. Much the mother wished she need not tell a soul what she must do, -and yet she did not know how to do it alone. And the cousin’s wife was -a coarse good creature, too, one who knew the earth and the ways of -men and knew full well the earthy body of a woman that is fertile and -must bear somehow. But how to tell her? - -Yet the thing came easily enough, for in a day or so thereafter when -the two women stood alone upon a pathway talking, having met by some -small accident or other, the cousin’s wife said in her loud and kindly -way, “Cousin, eat and let your sorrowing cease, for I do swear your -face is as yellow as though you had worms in you.” - -And the thought rose in the mother’s mind and she said it, low and -bitterly, “So I have a worm in me, too, that eats my life out.” - -And when the cousin’s wife stared, the mother put her hand to her belly -and she said, halting, “Something does grow in me, cousin, but I do not -know what it can be unless it is an evil wind of some sort.” - -Then the cousin’s wife said, “Let me see it,” and the mother opened her -coat and the cousin’s wife felt her where she had begun to swell, and -she said astonished, “Why, cousin, it is like a child there, and if you -had a husband, I would say that it was so with you!” - -Then the mother said nothing but she hung her head miserably and could -not lift her eyes, and the cousin saw a stirring in her belly and she -cried out in a terror, “It is a child, I swear, yet how can it be -except it be conceived by spirit, since your man is gone these many -years? But I have heard it said it does happen sometimes to women and -in olden times it happened often, if they were of a saintly sort, that -gods came down and visited them. Yet you be no great saint, cousin, a -very good woman, it is true, and held in good respect, but still angry -and sudden sometimes and of a lusty temper. But have you felt a god -about?” - -Then the mother would like to have told another lie and she longed to -say she did feel a god one day when she stood in the wayside shrine to -shelter in a storm, but when she opened her lips to shape the lie she -could not. Partly she was afraid to lie so blackly about the old decent -god there whose face she covered, and partly she was so weary now she -could lie no more. So she lifted her head and looked miserably at the -cousin’s wife and the red flowed into her pale cheeks and spotted them; -she would have given half her life now if she could have told a full -deceiving lie. But she could not and there it was. And the good woman -who looked at her saw how it was and she asked no question nor how it -came about, but she said only, “Cover yourself, sister, lest you be -cold.” - -And the two walked on a while and at last the mother said in a very -passion of bitterness, “It does not matter who begot it and none shall -ever know and if you will help me through this, cousin and my sister, I -will care for you as long as my life is in me.” - -And the cousin’s wife said in a low voice, “I have not lived so many -years as I have and never seen a woman rid herself of a thing she did -not want.” - -And for the first time the mother saw a hope before her and she -whispered, “But how--but how--” and the cousin’s wife said, “There are -simples to be bought if one has the money, strong stuff that kills -woman and child sometimes, and always it is harder than a birth, but if -you take enough, it will do.” - -And the mother said, “Then let it kill me, if it will only kill this -thing, and so save my sons and these others the knowledge.” - -Then the cousin’s wife looked steadfastly at the mother and she stopped -where she was and looked at her, and she said, “Yes, cousin, but will -it come about again like this, now that your man is dead?” - -Then did the mother swear and she cried in agony, “No, and I will throw -myself into the pond and cool myself forever if it comes on me hot -again as it did in the summer.” - -That night she dug out from the ground a good half of her store of -silver and when the chance came she gave it to the cousin’s wife to buy -the simples. - -On a night when all was bought and the stuff brewed, the cousin’s wife -came in the darkness and she whispered to the waiting woman, “Where -will you drink it? For it cannot be done in any house, being so bloody -a business as it is.” - -Then the mother remembered that wayside shrine and how lonely it was -with so few wayfarers passing by, and none in the night, and to that -wayside shrine the two women went, and the mother drank the brew and -she lay down upon the ground, and waited. - -Presently in the deep night the stuff seized on her with such gripes as -she never dreamed of and she gave herself up to die. And as the agony -went on she came at last to forget all except the agony, and she grew -dazed with it. Yet in the midst of it she remembered not to scream to -ease herself, nor did they dare to light a torch or any little light, -lest any might by some strange chance pass and see from even a distance -an unaccustomed light in that shrine. - -No, the mother must suffer on as best she could. The sweat poured down -her body like rain and she was dead to everything except the fearful -griping, as though some beast laid hold on her to tear the very vitals -from her, and at last it seemed a moment came when they were torn from -her indeed, and she gave one cry. - -Then the cousin’s wife came forward with a mat she had, and took what -was to be taken, and she felt and whispered sadly, “It would have been -a boy, too. You are a fortunate mother who have so many sons in you.” - -But the mother groaned and said, “There never will be another now.” - -Then she lay back and rested on the ground a little and when she could -they went back to the house, she leaning on the kindly cousin’s arm and -holding back her moans. And when they passed a pond, the cousin threw -the roll of matting into it. - - * * * * * - -For many days thereafter the mother lay ill and weak upon her bed, -and the good cousin aided her in what way she could, but she lay ill -and half-sick the winter through that year so that to lift a load and -carry it to market was a torture and yet she must do it now and then. -At last, though, she rose sometimes more easily on a fair day and sat a -while in the sun. So spring came on and she grew somewhat better, but -still not herself, and often when the cousin brought some dainty dish -to coax her she would press her hand to her breast and say, “It seems -I cannot swallow. There is something heavy here. My heart hangs here -between my breasts so heavy and full I cannot swallow. My heart seems -full of pain I cannot weep away. If I could weep once to the end I -would be well again.” - -So it seemed to her. But she could not weep. All spring she could not -weep nor could she work as she was used, and the elder son struggled to -do what must be done, and the cousin helped more than he was able. And -the mother could not weep or work. - -So it was until a certain day came when the barley was bearded, and -she sat out in the sun listlessly, her hair not combed that morning -she was so weary. Suddenly there was the sound of a step, and when she -looked up that landlord’s agent stood. When the elder son saw him he -came forward and he said, “Sir, my father is dead now and I stand in -his place, for my mother has been ill these many months. I must go with -you now to guess the harvest, if you have come for that, for she is not -able.” - -Then the man, this townsman, this smooth-haired, smooth-lipped man, -looked at the mother full and carelessly and well he knew what had -befallen her, and she knew he knew and she hung her head in silence. -But the man said carelessly, “Come then, lad,” and the two went away -and left her there alone. - -Now well she knew she had no hope from this man. Nor did she want him -any more, her body had been weak so long. But this last sight of him -was the last touch she needed. She felt the lump she called her heart -melt somehow and the tears rushed to her eyes, and she rose and walked -by a little unused path across the land to a rude lonely grave she -knew, the grave of some unknown man or woman, so old none knew whose it -was now, and she sat there on the grassy mound and waited. And at last -she wept. - -First her tears came slow and bitter but freely after a while and then -she laid her head against the grave and wept in the way that women do -when their hearts are too full with sorrow of their life and spilled -and running over and they care no more except they must be eased -somehow because all of life is too heavy for them. And the sound of -her weeping reached the little hamlet even, borne on the winds of -spring, and hearing it the mothers in the houses and the wives looked -at each other and they said softly, “Let her weep, poor soul, and ease -herself. She has not been eased these many months of widowhood. Tell -her children to let her weep.” - -And so they let her weep. - - * * * * * - -But after long weeping the mother heard a sound, a soft rustling there -beside her, and looking up in the twilight, for she had wept until the -sun was set, there came her daughter, feeling her way over the rough -ground and she cried as she came, “Oh, mother, my cousin’s wife said -let you weep until you eased yourself, but are you not eased yet with -so much weeping?” - -Then was the mother roused. She was roused and she looked at the child -and sighed and she sat up and smoothed back her loosened hair and wiped -her swollen eyes and rose and the child put out her hand and felt for -her mother’s hand, shutting her eyes against the shining evening glow -that was rosy where the sun went down, and she said plaintively, “I -wish I never had to weep, for when I weep, my tears do burn me so!” - -At these few words the mother came to herself, suddenly washed clean. -Yes, these few words, spoken at the end of such a day, this small young -hand feeling for her, called her back from some despair where she had -lived these many months. She was mother again and she looked at her -child and coming clear at last from out her daze she cried, “Are your -eyes worse, my child?” - -And the girl answered, “I think I am as I ever was, except light seems -to burn me more, and I do not see your faces clear as once I did, and -now my brother grows so tall, I cannot tell if it be you or he who -comes, unless I hear you speak.” - -Then the mother, leading this child of hers most tenderly, groaned to -herself, “Where have I been these many days? Child, I will go tomorrow -when dawn comes and buy some balm to make you well as I ever said I -would!” - -That night it seemed to all of them as though the mother had returned -from some far place and was herself again. She put their bowls full of -food upon the table and bestirred herself, her face pale and spent but -tranquil and full of some wan peace. She looked at each child as though -she had not seen him for a year or two. Now she looked at the little -boy and she cried, “Son, tomorrow I will wash your coat. I had not seen -how black it is and ragged. You are too pretty a lad to go so black as -that and I your mother.” And to the elder one she said, “You told me -you had a finger cut and sore the other day. Let me see it.” And when -she washed his hand clean and put some oil upon the wound, she said, -“How did you do it, son?” - -And he opened his eyes surprised and said, “I told you, mother, that I -cut it when I made the sickle sharp upon the whetting stone and ready -to reap the barley soon.” - -And she made haste to answer, “Aye, I remember now, you said so.” - -As for the children, they could not say how it was, but suddenly there -seemed warmth about them and this warmth seemed to come from their -mother and good cheer filled them and they began to talk and tell her -this and that and the little lad said, “I have a penny that I gained -today when we were tossing in the street to see who could gain it, and -ever I gain the penny first I am so lucky.” - -And the mother looked on him avidly and saw how fair and sound a lad he -was and while she wondered at herself because she had not seen it long -ago, she answered him with hearty, sudden love, “Good lad to save the -penny and not buy sweet stuff and waste it!” But at this the lad grew -grave and said, troubled, “But only for today, mother, for tomorrow I -had thought to buy the stuff and there is no need to save it for I can -gain a penny every day or so,” and he waited for her to refuse him, but -she only answered mildly, “Well, and buy it, son, for the penny is your -own.” - -Then the silent elder lad came forth with what he had to say, and he -said, “My mother, I have a curious thing to tell you and it is this. -Today when we were in the field, the landlord’s agent and I, he said it -was the last year he would come to this hamlet, for he is going out -to try destiny in other parts. He said he was aweary of this walking -over country roads and he was aweary of these common farmers and their -wives, and it was the same thing season after season, and he was going -to some city far from here.” - -This the mother heard and she paused to hear it, and she sat motionless -and staring at the lad through the dim light of the flickering candle -she had lit that night and set upon the table. Then when he was -finished she waited for an instant and let the words sink in her heart. -And they sank in like rain upon a spent and thirsty soil and she cried -in a low warm voice, “Did he say so, my son?” and then as though it -mattered nothing to her she added quickly, “But we must sleep and rest -ourselves for tomorrow when the dawn comes I go to the city to buy the -balm for your sister’s eyes and make her well again.” - -And now her voice was full and peaceful, and when the dog came begging -she fed him well and recklessly, and the beast ate happy and amazed, -gulping all down in haste and sighing in content when he was full and -fed. - -That night she slept. They all slept and sleep covered them all, mother -and children, deep and full of rest. - - - - -XII - - -The next day came gray and still with unfinished rain of summer and -the sky pressed low over the valley heavy with its burden of the rain, -and the hills were hidden. But the mother rose early and made ready to -take the girl to the town. She could not wait a day more to do what she -could for this child of hers. She had waited all these many days and -even let them stretch out into years, but now in her new motherhood, -washed clean by tears, she could not be too tender or too quick for her -own heart. - -As for the young girl, she trembled with excitement while she combed -her long hair and braided it freshly with a pink cord, and she put on -a clean blue coat flowered with white, for she never in all her life -had been away from this small hamlet, and as she made ready she said -wistfully to them all, “I wish my eyes were clear today so I could see -the strange sights in the town.” - -But the younger lad, hearing this, answered sharply and cleverly, “Yes, -but if your eyes were clear you would not need to go.” - -So apt an answer was it that the young girl smiled as she ever did at -some quick thing he said, but she answered nothing, for she was not -quick herself but slow and gentle in all she did, and when she had -thought a while she said, “Even so, I had rather have my eyes clear and -never see the town, perhaps. I think I would rather have my eyes clear.” - -But she said this so long after that the lad had forgotten what he -said, being impatient in his temper and swift to change from this to -that in play or bits of tasks he did, and indeed, he was more like his -father than was any of the three. - -But the mother did not listen to the children’s talk. She made ready -and she clothed herself. Once she stood hesitating by a drawer she -opened and she took a little packet out and looked at it, opening the -soft paper that enwrapped it, and it was the trinkets, and she thought, -“Shall I keep them or shall I turn them into coin again?” And she -doubted a while and now she thought, “True it is I can never wear them -again, being held a widow, nor could I bear to wear them anyhow. But I -could keep them for the girl’s wedding.” So she mused staring down at -them in her hand. But suddenly remembering, her gorge rose against them -and she longed to be free from them and from every memory and she said -suddenly with resolve, “No, keep them I will not. And he might come -home--my man might come home, and if he found me with strange trinkets -he would not believe me if I told him I had bought them myself.” So she -thrust the packet in her bosom and called to the girl they must set -forth. - -They went along the country road and through the hamlet before there -was a stir, it was so early. The mother strode freely, strong again as -she had not been for long, her head high and free against the misty -air, and she led her daughter by the hand, and the girl struggled to -move quickly, too. But she had not known how little she could see. -About the well known ways of home her feet went easily and surely -enough and she did not know she went by feel and scent and not by -sight, but here the road was strange to her, now high, now low, for the -stones were sunken sometimes, and often she would have fallen had it -not been for her mother’s hand. - -Then the mother seeing this was frightened and her heart ran ahead to -meet this fresh evil and she cried out afraid, “I doubt I have brought -you too late, poor child. But you never told me that you could not see -and I thought it was but the water in your eyes that kept you blinded.” - -And the girl half sobbing answered, “I thought I saw well enough, too, -my mother, and I think I do, only this road is so up and down, and you -go more quickly than I am used to go.” - -Then the mother slowed her steps and said no more and they went on, -more slowly, save that when they came near to that shop of medicine -the mother made haste again without knowing that she did, she was so -eager. It was still early in the day and they were the first buyers and -the medicine seller was but taking down the boards from his shop doors, -and he did it slowly, stopping often to yawn and thrust his fingers -into his long and uncombed hair and scratch his head. When he looked -up and saw this countrywoman and the girl standing there before his -counter he was amazed and he cried out, “What is it you want at such an -early hour?” - -Then the mother pointed to her child and she said, “Is there any balm -that you have for such eyes as these?” - -The man stared at the girl then and at her seared and red-rimmed eyes -that she could scarcely open at all so red and seared they were, and he -said, “How has she come by such eyes?” - -The mother answered, “At first we thought it was the smoke made them -so. My man is dead and I have a man’s work to do on the land, and often -has she fed the fire if I came home late. But these last years it seems -more than this, for I have saved her the smoke, and there seems some -heat that comes up in her of its own accord and burns her eyes. What -fire it can be I do not know, being as she is the mildest maid, and -never even out of temper.” - -Then the man shook his head, yawning widely again, and he said -carelessly, “There are many who have eyes like these from some fire in -them, various fires they be, and there is no balm to heal such fever. -It will come up and up. Aye, and there is no healing.” - -Now these words fell like iron upon the two hearts that heard them and -the mother said in a low swift voice, “But there may be--there must be -some physician somewhere. Do you know of any good physician not too -costly, since we be poor?” - -But the man shook his tousled head languidly and went to fetch some -drug he kept in a little box of wood, and he said as he went, “There is -no skill to make her see, and this I know for I have seen a many such -sore eyes, and every day people come here with such eyes and cry of -inner fever. Aye, and even those foreign doctors have no true good way -I hear, for though they cut the eyes open again and rub the inner part -with magic stones and mutter runes and prayers, still the inner fires -come up and burn the eyes again, and none can cut away that fire for it -burns inside the seat of life. Yet here is a cooling powder that will -cool a little while, though heal it cannot.” - -And he fetched a powder rolled in little grains like wheat and the -color of a dark wheat, and he put them into a goose quill and sealed -the other end with tallow and he said again, “Aye, she is blind, -goodwife.” And when he saw how the young girl’s face looked at this -news and how she was bewildered like a child is who has received a -heavy unseen blow, he added, half kindly, too, “And what use to grieve? -It is her destiny. In some other life she must have done an evil -thing, looked on some forbidden sight, and so received this curse. Or -else her father may have sinned, or even you, goodwife--who knows the -heart? But however that may be the curse is here upon her and none can -change what heaven wills.” And again he yawned, his brief kindness -done, and he took the pence the woman gave him and shuffled into some -inner room. - -As for the mother, she spoke back with brave anger and she said, “She -is not blind! Whoever heard of sore eyes making people blind? My man’s -mother’s eyes were sore from childhood, but she did not die blind!” And -she went quickly before the man could make an answer, and she held the -girl’s hand hard to stay its trembling, and she went to a silversmith, -not to that same one, and she took from her bosom that packet and she -gave it to the bearded man who kept the shop and said, in a low voice, -“Change me these into coin, for my man is dead and I cannot wear them -more.” - -Then while the old man weighed out the trinkets to see what their worth -was in coin, she waited and the young girl began to sob a little softly -in her sleeve and then she said out from her sobs, “I do not believe -I am truly blind, mother, for it seems to me I see something shining -there on the scales, and if I were blind I could not see it, could I? -What is that shining?” - -Then the mother knew the girl was blind indeed, or good as blind, for -the trinkets lay bright and plain not two feet from the girl’s face, -and she groaned in herself and she said, “You are right, too, child, -and it is a bit of silver I had in a ring and I cannot wear now, and so -I change it into coin we can use.” - -And in this new sorrow come upon her the woman gave no single thought -to the trinkets when they were gone or thought of what they meant. No, -she only thought of this, that with all their silvery shining her child -could not see them, and the old man took them and hung them in his -little case where he kept bracelets and rings and chains for children’s -necks and such pretty things, and she forgot all they had meant to her -except, now, a shining thing her blind child could not see. - - * * * * * - -Yet was there one thing more to do, and she knew that she must do, if -so be the child was to be truly blind. Holding the girl’s hand she went -along, shielding her from those who passed, for by now the streets -were thronged and many came to buy and sell, farmers and gardeners -setting their baskets of green and fresh vegetables along the sides of -the streets, and fishermen setting out their tubs of fish there too. -But the mother went until she came to a certain shop and she left the -girl beside the door and went in alone, and when a clerk came forward -to know what she would have, she pointed at a thing and said, “That,” -and it was the small brass gong and the little wooden hammer tied to -it that the blind use when they walk to warn others they are blind. -The clerk struck it once or twice to show its worth before he wrapped -it, and hearing that sound the young girl lifted her head quickly and -called, “Mother, there is a blind man here, for I hear a sound clear as -a bell.” - -The clerk laughed loudly then, for well he saw the maid was blind, and -he burst out, “There be none but--” - -But the mother scowled at him so sourly that he left his words hanging -as they were and gave the thing to her quickly and stood and stared -like any fool at her while she went away, not knowing what to make of -it. - -They went home then and the young girl was contented to go home, for -as the morning wore on the town grew full of noise and bustle and -frightening sounds she was not used to hear and loud voices bawling in -a bargain and rude thrusts against her from those she could not see, -and she put her little foot here and there, feeling in her delicate way -as she went, smiling unconsciously in her pain. But the mother grieved -most bitterly in secret and she held hard in her other hand the thing -she had bought, which is the sign of those who are blind. - - * * * * * - -Yet though she had this little gong, she could not give it to the girl. -She could not take it that the girl’s eyes were wholly sightless. She -waited through the summer and they reaped the grain again, and it was -measured to the new agent that the landlord sent, an old man this time, -some poor cousin or distant kin, and autumn came, but still the mother -could not give the girl the sign. No, there was a thing yet she must -do, a prayer to make. For seeing daily her blind child, the mother -remembered what the apothecary had said that day, “Some sin her parents -did, perhaps--who knows the heart?” - -She told herself that she would set forth to a temple that she -knew--not to that wayside shrine nor ever to those gods whose faces -she had covered--but to a temple far away, a whole ten miles and more, -where she had heard there was a kind and potent goddess who heard women -when they prayed bitterly. The mother told her two sons why she went -and they were grave and awed to think what had befallen their sister. -The elder said in his old man’s way, “I have been long afraid there was -a thing wrong with her.” But the younger lad cried out astonished, “As -for me, I never dreamed there was aught wrong with her eyes I am so -used to her as she is!” - -And the mother told the maid too and she said, “Daughter, I go to the -temple to the south where there is that living goddess, and it is the -selfsame one who gave the son to Li the Sixth’s wife when she had gone -barren all her life long and she was nearing the end of her time to -bear, and her man grew impatient and would have taken a concubine he -was so angry with her barrenness, and she went and prayed and there -came that fine good son she has.” - -And the maid answered, “Well I remember it, mother, and she made two -silken shoes for the goddess and gave them when the boy was born. Aye, -mother, go quickly, for she is a true good goddess.” - -So the mother set forth alone, and all day she struggled against -the wind which blew unceasing through this month, blowing down the -cold with it as it came out of the desert north, so that the leaves -shriveled on the trees and the wayside grass turned crisp and sere and -all things came to blight and death. But heavier than the wind, more -bitter, was the fear of the mother now and she feared that her own sin -had come upon the child. When at last she came into the temple she did -not see at all how great and fine it was, its walls painted rosy red -and the gods gilded and many people coming to and fro for worship. No, -she went quickly in, searching out that one goddess that she knew, and -she bought a bit of incense at the door where it was sold, and she said -to the first gray priest she saw, “Where is the living goddess?” - -Then he, supposing her from her common looks to be but one of those -many women who came each day to ask for sons, pointed with his pursed -mouth to a dark corner where a small old dingy goddess sat between two -lesser figures who attended her. There the mother went and stood and -waited while an old bent woman muttered her prayers for a son who could -not move and had lain these many years, she told the goddess, on his -bed, so stricken he could not even beget a son again, and the old woman -prayed and said, “If there be a sin in our house for which we have not -atoned, then tell me, lady goddess, if this is why he lies there, and -I will atone--I will atone!” - -Then the old woman rose and coughing and sighing she went her way and -the mother knelt and said her wish, too. But she could not forget what -the old woman had said, and to the mother it seemed the goddess looked -down harshly, and that the smooth golden face stared down fixed and -unmoved by the sinful soul who prayed, whose sin was not atoned. - -So the mother rose at last and sighed most heavily, not knowing what -her prayer was worth, and she lit her incense and went away again. When -she had walked the ten miles and come to her own door once more, cold -and weary, she sank upon the stool and she said sadly when the children -asked her how the goddess heard her prayer, “How do I know what heaven -wills? I could but say my prayer and it must be as heaven wills and we -can only wait and see how it will be.” - -But with all her secret heart she wished she had not sinned her sin. -The more she wished the more she wondered how she could have done it, -and all her gorge rose against that smooth-faced man and she loathed -him for her sin’s sake and because she could not now in any way undo -what had been done. At that hour of deep loathing she was healed of all -her heat and youth, and she was young no more. For her there was no man -left in the world for man’s own sake, and there were only these three -her children, and one blind. - - - - -XIII - - -Now the mother was no longer young. She was in her forty and third -year, and when she counted on her fingers sometimes in the night how -many years her children’s father had been gone, she used the fingers -of her two hands and two more over again, and even the years that she -had let the hamlet think him dead were more than all the fingers on one -hand. - -Yet she walked straight and slight as ever, and no flesh grew on her -frame. Others might begin to shrivel or grow fat as the cousin’s wife -did each year, and the old gossip, too, yet this woman stayed lean and -strong as she had been when she was young. But her breasts grew small -and dry, and in the strong sunlight where one saw her face full, there -were lines about the eyes from working in the bright hard sunshine, and -the skin was dark with the burning of the many years in the fields. -She moved somewhat more slowly than she did, too, without the old -lightness, for she had never been as she was before she tore that wild -life out of her. When she was called for childbirth in the hamlet as -she often was now, seeing she was widowed and counted as among the -ones not young, she found it hard to move so quickly as she must -sometimes, and once or twice a young mother caught the child herself, -and once she even let a newborn babe fall to the brick floor and bruise -its head, and it was a boy, too, but still no harm was done in the end -most luckily, for the lad grew up sturdy and with all his senses in him. - -As her children grew, to them their mother seemed old. The eldest was -forever urging her to rest herself and not to heave so at the hard -great clods when the land was ploughed but let him do it, for he did it -easily now in the strength of his young manhood, and he strove to have -her do the lesser lighter things, and nothing pleased him better than -to see her sit quietly upon her stool in the shade on a summer’s day -sewing, and let him go to the land alone. - -Yet the truth was she was not after all as old as her son would have -her. She ever loved the field work better than any and she loved to -work there on the land and then come home, her body wet with her clean -sweat and the wind blowing cool on that wetness, and her flesh weary -but sweetly so. Her eyes were used to fields and hills and great -things, and they did not narrow easily to small fine things like -needles. - -Indeed, in that house they sorely missed a woman young and with sound -eyes, for they all knew now the girl’s eyes were blind. She knew, -too, poor maid; ever since that day when she had gone to town with -her mother she knew it secretly, even as her mother did, and neither -had any great faith in the goddess, somehow, the mother from what she -feared of that old sin of hers, and the maid because her blindness -seemed to her a destiny. - -One day the mother cried, “Have you used that stuff all gone from the -goose quill?” and the girl answered quietly from the doorstep where she -sat, for there was this one good she had, the light hurt her no more -because she could not see it, and she said, “I have used it to the end -long since.” - -And the mother said again, “I must buy you more--why did you not say it -sooner?” - -But the young girl shook her head, and the mother’s heart stopped to -see her look, and then these words came wildly from those gentle lips, -“Oh, mother, I am blind--well I know I am blind! I cannot see your -face at all now, and if I went out from our own dooryard across the -threshing-floor, I could not see the way to go. Do you not see I never -go away from the house now, not even to the field?” And she fell to -weeping, wincing and biting her lips, for it was still painful to her -to weep, and she would not unless she could not help herself. - -The mother answered nothing. What was there to answer to her blind -child?... But after a while she rose and went into the room and from -the drawer where once the trinkets lay she fetched out the little gong -she bought and she said to the girl, going to her, “Child, I bought -this thing against the day--” She could not finish but she pressed -the thing into the girl’s hand and the girl took it, feeling quickly -what it was, and she held it fast and said in her plaintive way, quiet -again, “Yes, I need it, mother.” - -When the elder son came home that evening his mother bade him cut a -staff from some hard tree and smooth it to his sister’s hand, so that -with her little sounding signal in one hand and in the other the staff -she might move about more freely and with something less of fear, as -the blind do, and so if any harm came to her, or one pushed against her -carelessly or knocked her so she fell, the mother would not be blamed -because she had set the sign of blindness plain upon the maid for all -to see. - -Thereafter the young girl carried with her when she went outside the -door at all these two things, her staff and her small gong, and she -learned to tinkle the gong softly and clearly and she moved in a quiet -sure way, a pretty maid enough, her face small and plaintive and on it -that still look that blindness sets upon a face. - -Yet this blind maid was wonderfully clever, too, in her own way about -the house. There she needed no sign or staff, and she could wash the -rice and cook it, save that her mother would not let her light the fire -any more, but she could sweep the room and the threshing-floor, and -she could draw water from the pool, and search for eggs if the fowls -laid them in some usual place, and she knew by scent and sound where -the beasts were and how to set their food before them, and almost -everything she could do, except to sew and work in the fields, and for -labor in the fields she was not strong enough, for her suffering from -babyhood had seemed to stunt her and hold back her growth. - -Seeing the young girl move thus about the house the mother’s heart -would melt within her and she suffered for what fate might befall -this young thing when she must wed her somewhere. For wed she must be -somehow, lest after the mother died there be not one to care for the -maid nor one to whom she truly could belong, since a woman belongs -first to the husband’s house and not to that house where she was born. -Often and often the mother thought of this and she wondered who would -have a maid who was blind, and if none would have her then what would -happen to her in the end. If ever she spoke this matter out the elder -lad would answer, “I will care for her, mother, as long as she will -do her share,” and this would comfort the mother somewhat and yet she -knew a man cannot be fully known until it is seen what his wife is, and -she would think to herself, “I must find him such a wife as will take -good heed of my blind maid and be kind to her. When I go looking for -his wife I must find one who will take heed of two, her husband and his -sister.” - - * * * * * - -It was time, too, the mother found a wife for this elder son of hers. -Nineteen years old he had got to be and almost without her knowing it. -Yet he had never asked her for a wife nor shown her his need of one. -Ever he had been the best and mildest son a mother could have, working -hard and never asking anything and if he went to the teashop sometimes -or rarely on a holiday in town, although that he never did unless he -had some business to put with it, he never took share in any ribaldry, -nor even in a game of chance except to watch it from afar, and he was -always silent where his elders were. - -A very perfect son he was and with but one fault left now that he had -passed the little faults of childhood and it was that he would not -spare his younger brother. No, it was the strangest thing, but this -elder son of hers, who was so even and gentle with all the world and -even with the beasts, so silent he would scarcely say what color he -would have the next new coat his mother bought him, when he was brother -he was hard upon the younger lad and railed against the boy if he grew -slack and played, and he held the boy bitterly to every sort of labor -on the land. The house was full of quarreling, the younger lad noisy -and full of angry words, and the elder brother holding himself silent -until he could bear no more and then he fell upon his brother with -whatever he had by him or with his bare hands and he beat the boy until -he ran blubbering and dodging in and out among the trees and seeking -refuge in his cousin’s house. And truly it came to such a pass as this, -that the whole hamlet blamed the elder brother for his hardness and -ran to save the younger lad, and so encouraged, the lad grew bold and -ran away from work and lived mostly at his cousin’s house, lost there -among the many lads and maids who grew there as they would, and he came -home freely only when he saw his brother gone to work. - -But sometimes the elder brother grew so bitter in his heart he came -home out of time and found his younger brother and then he caught the -lad’s head beneath his arm and cuffed him until the mother would come -running and she cried, “Now let be--let be--shame on you, son, to -strike your little brother so, and frighten your sister!” - -But the young man answered bitterly, “Shall I not chastise him, being -older brother to him and his father gone? He is an idle lazy lout, -gaming already every time he can, and well you know it, mother, but you -have ever loved him best!” - -It was true the mother did love this youngest son the best, and he -moved her heart as neither of the others did. The eldest son grew man -so soon, it seemed to her, and silent and with naught to say to anyone, -and she did not know this was because he was so often weary and that -she thought him surly when he was only very weary. As for the girl, the -mother loved her well but always with pain, for there the blind eyes -were always for a reproach and she never could forget that the goddess -had not heard her prayer nor had the mother ever heart to pray again, -fearing now that it was her own sin come down in some way worse than -she could bear because it fell upon her child. So it was that while her -heart was ever soft with pity still the maid was never any joy to her. -Even when the maid came loving and near and smiling and sat to listen -to her mother’s voice, the mother rose with some excuse and busied -herself somehow, because she could not bear to see those closed and -empty eyes. - -Only this youngest son was sound and whole and merry and oftentimes he -seemed his father over again, and more and more the mother loved him, -and all the love she ever had for the man now turned itself upon this -son. She loved him and often stood between him and the elder brother -so that when the young man seized the boy she rushed between them and -caught the blows and forced her son to cease for shame because he might -strike his mother, and then the lad would slip away. - -It came to be that after a while the lad slipped often thus away and -from his hiding in his cousin’s house he went to wandering here and -there and even to the town and he would be gone perhaps a day or two, -and then he would run back to his cousin’s house and come out as if he -had been there all the time, his eyes upon his elder brother’s mood -that day. And if he did not come, the mother would wait until the elder -son was gone and she went to the cousin’s house and coaxed him home -with some dainty she had made. But she half feared her elder son too -these days and sometimes she would start with him to the field or -leave soon and come and give the lad his meal first before his brother -came, and he picked the best from every dish and she let him, for she -loved him so well. She loved him for his merry words and ways and for -his smooth round face and for the same supple, lissome body that his -father had. The elder lad went bent already with his labor, his hand -hard and slow, but this lad was quick and brown and smooth-skinned -everywhere and light upon his feet as a young male cat, and the mother -loved him. - -And the slow elder son felt this warm love his mother had for his -brother, and he brooded on it. Every day of labor he had done, and all -the labor that he spared her he remembered now and it seemed to him -his mother was the crudest soul that ever lived and she never recked -it anything that he had striven from childhood for her sake. So the -bitterness gathered slow and deep within his heart, and he hated his -brother. - - - - -XIV - - -Now all this hatred gathered in the elder son and even the mother did -not know how deep it was until a certain day when out it came, bursting -forth like a river dammed behind a dyke and swollen with waters from -small secret sources that men do not know, so that when it breaks they -are astonished because none knew how it had been with that river all -the days when it had seemed the same. - -It was at the time of the rice harvest at the end of a summer when all -must labor hard and heavily upon the land from dawn to dark, and so -everyone must labor who is not rich enough to hire it done for him. Now -the young lad had labored that day, too, although he usually thought of -some distant thing he had to do elsewhere. But this time the mother had -coaxed him to it and she had said to him secretly, smoothing his bony -lad’s hand while she talked, “Work well for these few days, my son, -while the harvest lasts, and show your brother how well you can do, -and if you will work well and please him then I will buy you something -pretty when the work is done, something that you want most.” - -So the lad promised he would, pouting his red lips and feeling himself -hard used, and he worked well enough, although not too well, yet well -enough to save his skin when his brother’s eye fell on him. - -But that day when a rain threatened before the sheaves were in, they -all worked beyond the usual hour and the mother worked until she was -spent, for she had never been so tireless as she was before she ate the -bitter herbs to save her honor that dark night. Then she sighed and -straightened her aching back and said, “My son, I will go home and see -the food is heated for you when you come, for I am spent and sore.” - -“Go home, then,” said the elder son a little roughly, yet not meaning -to be so, for he never urged his mother to do more than she would. So -she went then, and left the brothers alone, for the hour grew too late -even for the gleaners who had followed them by day. - -Scarcely had she set the food to boiling when the maid cried out from -where she sat upon the threshold that she heard her little brother -weeping, and when the mother ran out of the kitchen it was so and she -ran to the harvest field and there upon the reaped grain the elder son -was beating the younger one most mercilessly with the handle of his -scythe, and the younger one was howling and striking back with his two -fists and struggling to loose himself from his brother’s hard grasp -about his neck. But the elder brother held him fast and beat him with -the dull end of the handle. Then the mother ran with all her strength -and clung to the angry elder son and begged of him, “Oh, my son, a -little lad he is yet--Oh, son. Oh, son!” - -And as she clung like this the younger slipped out from the elder’s -hand and ran swift as a young hare across the field and disappeared -into the dusk. There were these two left, the mother and her bitter -elder son. Then she faltered, “He is such a child yet, son, only -fourteen and with his mind still on play.” - -But the young man replied, “Was I child at fourteen? Did I play at -harvest time when I was fourteen and needed I to have you bribe me with -a ring and a new robe and this and that I had not earned?” - -Then she knew the silly younger lad had boasted of what he would have -and she stood speechless, caught in her fault, staring at her son and -silent, and he went on and cried, his bitterness bursting from him, -“Yes, you keep the money, and I give you all we earn. I never take a -penny for my own, not even to smoke a little pipe of any kind or take -a bowl of wine or buy myself anything a young man might have and count -it but his due. Yet you must promise him all I never had! And for what? -To do the labor that he ought to do for nothing and to pay for what he -eats and wears!” - -“I did not promise rings and robes,” she said in a low and troubled -voice, half afraid of this angry son of hers who was so grave and quiet -on other days that she did not know him now. - -“You did!” he said most passionately. “Or if not that, then worse, for -he said he was to have what he wanted when the harvest money was in and -taxes paid. He said you promised!” - -“I meant some small toy or other, costing but a penny or so,” she -answered, shamed before this good son of hers. And then plucking up -her courage--for was he not her son still?--she added, “And if I did -promise a little toy it was but to save him from your angers on him -always, whatever he may do, so that you keep him down with all your -cruel looks and words--and now blows!” - -But he would say no more. He fell to the sheaves again and worked as -though some demon had him, he worked so hard and fast. The mother stood -looking at him, not knowing what to do, feeling he was hard, too, with -her little son, and yet knowing somehow she was wrong. Then as she -looked she saw the young man was very near to tears, so that he set his -jaws hard to keep back a sob, and when she saw this sign of feeling -in him, such as she had never seen in him who always seemed so usual -and content and without any desire, her heart grew soft as ever it did -when she had harmed a child of hers, although he did not know it, and -she softened to him more than she had ever done before and she cried -quickly, “Son, I am wrong, I know. I have not done well enough for you -of late. I have not seen how you have grown into a man. But man you -are, and now I see it, and you shall take the man’s place in our house -and you shall have the money and the chief place in name as well as -in the labor you have always done. Yes, I see you are a man now, and I -will do straightway what I have put off too long. I will find a wife -for you and it will be your turn now and hers. I have not seen it, but -now I see it well.” - -So she made amends. He muttered something then that she could not hear -and turned his back and said no more but worked on. But she felt eased -by her amends and went back crying briskly, “Well, and all the rice -will be burned, I swear--” and this she said to cover up the feeling of -the moment and make it usual. - -But when she was home again she busied herself here and there -forgetting all her weariness, and when the maid asked, “Mother, what -was wrong?” she answered quickly, “Nothing much amiss, child, except -your younger brother would not do his share, or so his brother said. -But brothers always quarrel, I think,” and she ran and made an extra -dish from some radishes she pulled, and sliced them and poured vinegar -upon them and sesame oil and soy sauce, such as she knew her son loved. -And as she worked she pondered her amends and it seemed true to her her -son should wed and she blamed herself because she had leaned on him as -on a man, and yet he had not man’s reward, and she set her mind to do -all that she had said she would. - -Her elder son came in at last and later than usual so that it was -wholly dark and she could not see his face until he came within the -light of the candle she had lit and set ready on the table. She looked -at him closely then, without his seeing her, and she saw he was himself -again and pleased with what she had said and all his anger gone. And -seeing this peace upon her elder son she called to the younger one who -hung about the door, not daring to come in until he knew his brother’s -temper, and yet driven by hunger, too, and she called out, “Come in, -little son!” - -And he came in, his eyes upon his brother. But the elder paid no heed -to him, his anger gone for this time, and the mother was well content -and knew she had decided well and so she moved to carry out her promise -to the end. - - * * * * * - -And as she ever did in any little trouble, she went to the cousin and -to the cousin’s wife, for she herself knew no maid, since none in that -hamlet could be chosen, seeing all were kin by blood and marriage and -had the same surname, nor did she know any maid in town, for there she -had dealings only with such small shops as bought the little she had -to sell. She went at an hour in evening, for the year was yet warm -although early autumn was near, and they sat and talked while the -cousin’s wife suckled her last child. The mother made known her want at -last and said, “Then do you know any maid, my sister, in that village -where you lived before you were wed? A maid like yourself I would like -very well, easy tempered and quick to bear and good enough at labor. -The house I can tend myself yet for many a year, and if she be not so -good in the house I can endure it.” - -The good cousin’s wife laughed at this loudly and looked at her man and -cried, “I do not know if he would say your son would count it curse or -blessing to have one like me.” - -Then the man looked up in his slow way, a bit of rice stalk in his -mouth which he had sat chewing as he listened, and he answered -thoughtfully, “Oh, aye--good enough--” and his wife laughed again to -hear his luke-warmness and then she said, “Well, and I can go there and -see, sister, and there are two hundred families or so in that village, -a market-town it is, and doubtless one maid among so many ready to be -wed.” - -So they talked on of it and the mother said plainly there must not be -too great a cost, and she said, “I know very well I cannot hope for one -of the very best in every way, since I am poor and my son has no great -lot of land and we must rent more than we own.” - -But the man spoke up and said to this, “Well, but you do own some land, -and it is something nowadays when many have nothing at all, and I had -liefer wed a maid of mine to a man who has some land and little silver -than to one who has much silver and no firm land to stand on. A good -man and good land--that would be sound promise for any maid if she were -mine.” And when his wife said, “Well, then, children’s father, if you -will let me go, I can go to that town a day or two, and look about,” -then he said in his spare way, “Oh, aye, I will--the maids are old -enough to free you now and then.” - -So soon thereafter the cousin’s wife dressed herself clean and took -the babe and a child or two among the little ones to show her father’s -family and she took an elder two or so to help her with the little -ones, and hired a wheelbarrow to put them all upon and she rode her -husband’s gray ass he did not need these days now that the harvest -was over and he could use his ox to tread the grain. They set forth -thus and were gone three days and more. And when she was come back she -was right full of all the maids that she had seen and she said to the -mother, who ran to hear her when the news came she had returned, - -“Maids there be a plenty in that village for we never kill them there -as they do in some towns when babes are girls, and they are allowed to -grow however many a mother has, and so the village is full of them. -I saw a dozen that I knew myself, sister, all well grown and full of -flesh and color, and any would have done for any son I have. But still -only one was needed and I narrowed my two eyes and looked at this -one and that one, and chose out three, and out of the three I looked -again and saw one had a cough and a bubbly nose, and one was with some -soreness of the eyes, and the third was best. She is a sharp and clever -maid, I swear, very careful in all she says and does, and they say she -is the quickest seamstress in the town. She makes her own clothes and -clothes for all her father’s house and some for others and turns a bit -of silver in. A little old she is, perhaps, for your lad, because once -she was betrothed, and the man died out of time, or she would be wed by -now. But this is not ill, either, for the father is eager to wed her -somehow and will not ask much for her. She is not so pretty perhaps as -the others--her face a little yellow from sewing overmuch, but she is -clean-eyed.” - -Then the mother answered quickly, “We have sore eyes enough in our -house, I swear, and my eyes are not what they were either, and we need -someone who sews and likes it. Settle it then, my sister, with this -one, and if she is not above five years older than my son, it is well -enough.” - -So was it done, and the days of the month and the years in which -the two were born and the hours of their birth were compared upon a -geomancer’s table in the town, and they were all favorable. The young -man was born under the sign of horse, and the maid under the sign of -cat, which do not devour each other, and thus was harmony foretold in -the marriage. All things being right by destiny, therefore, the gifts -that must be given were given. - -Now out of her little hidden store the mother brought forth bits of -silver and odd copper coins and she bought good cotton stuffs and made -two garments for the maid, herself. And as the custom was in those -parts she wished a lucky woman to cut the garments, some woman whose -life was whole with man and sons. What woman then was more lucky in the -hamlet than the cousin’s wife? The mother took the good stuff to her -and said, “Set your hand here, my sister, so that your luck may fall -upon my son’s wife.” - -And so the cousin’s wife did, and she cut the garments wide and full -across the belly so that when the maid conceived they could be worn -with ease and not laid aside to waste. - -And the mother put forth more silver and hired the red marriage chair -and the bead crown and the earrings of false pearls and all that was -needful for the day, and especially the trousers of red which every -bride must wear in those parts. So was the marriage day set and it drew -on, and dawned at last, a clear cold day in the winter of that year. - -Now was it a strange day for this mother when she must welcome to her -house a new and younger woman, so long had she been master there as -well as mistress. When she was dressed in her best and stood waiting at -her door, when she saw the red bridal chair come near with its burden -of the bride within, it seemed suddenly but a little while ago when -she herself had come in that same chair, and the old woman dead stood -where she stood today and her own man where her son stood. Rarely did -she think these days of that man of hers, and truly did he seem dead -to her, but the strangest longing fell on her for him while she stood -waiting. It was not the longing of the flesh; no, that was dead and -gone now. It was some other longing, the longing for some completeness -of her own age, for she felt alone. - -She looked at her son newly, no longer only son to her, but husband to -another now, and there he stood, very still, his head hung down, stiff -in the new black robe she had made for him, and shoes upon his feet -most often bare. He seemed unmoved, or so she thought until she saw his -hanging hands trembling against the black of his robe. She sighed again -then, and again she thought of her own man and how she had peeped out -at him from behind the curtains of her chair and how her heart leaped -to see how fair he was and how good a man to look on in every way. -Yes, he had been prettier far than this son of hers was today, and she -thought to herself now that he was the prettiest man she had ever seen. - -But before she had time to grieve more than in this dim way the first -of the procession came, the small wedding fruits, the cock she had sent -to the bride’s house and that according to custom they sent back and -with it a hen they mated to it, and after these few things, the chair -was fetched and set down there before the door and the cousin’s wife -and the gossip and the other elder women of the hamlet took the bride’s -hand and tried to pull her forth. And she was proper and reluctant and -came at last but most unwillingly, and when she did come she made her -eyes downcast and did not look up once. Then the mother withdrew into -her cousin’s house, as was the custom too in those parts where it was -said a son’s wife must not see too easily her husband’s mother, lest -she do not fear her thereafter, and all that day the mother stayed in -the cousin’s house. - -But still she stayed near the door to hear what people said of this new -wife, and she heard some cry, “A very good and earnest-looking maid,” -and some said, “They say she sews well, and if it is true she made -those shoes she wears, she has ten good fingers, I swear!” And some -among the women went up and fingered the red wedding robes and lifted -the coat to see the inner ones, and all were well and neatly made, and -the buttons hard and nicely turned of twisted cloth, and they ran and -told the mother all, “A decent, able maid, goodwife, and with a proper -look.” But some among the men spoke coarsely and one said, “Too thin -and yellow for my taste, I swear!” and another called out, “Aye, but a -few months will mend the thinness, brother--naught like a man to make a -maid swell!” - -And in all this merry, ribald talk the maid moved demurely to her new -home and so was wed. - - * * * * * - -Now must the mother leave the bed where she had slept these many years, -and when the daughter-in-law came to make the bed for the mother that -night, for so it was done in those parts, she made the pallet where -the old dead woman once had slept behind the curtains, and later the -elder son; and the blind girl had a pallet of her own beside it, and -the younger lad slept in the kitchen if he slept at home. Yes, upon the -true bed the elder son slept now with his new wife. - -It was not easy either for the mother to give up to this new pair that -place which had been hers and her man’s, and it made her seem old to -herself at night to lie on the old woman’s pallet. Through the day she -could be usual, busy everywhere, commanding all, her tongue quick to -correct and command, but at night she was old. Oftentimes she woke and -it seemed to her it could not be she who lay there and the other pair -upon the bed, and she thought to herself amazed, “Now I suppose that -old soul who was mother when I came to this house felt as I do now, -when I came a bride and pushed her from her bed and lay there with her -son in my turn. And now another lies with my son.” - -It seemed so strange, so endless, this turning of some hidden wheel, -this passing on of link caught onto link in some never ending chain -that she was dazed with thinking of it even dimly, since she was not -one to think into the meanings of what passed before her, but only -taking all that came for what it was. But she was lessened in her own -eyes from that day on. Even though she was in name the oldest and the -first and mistress over all, she was not first in her own eyes. - -And she watched this son’s wife. She was dutiful and day after day -she made her bow before her husband’s mother, until the mother grew -weary and shouted at her, “Enough!” But the mother could not find any -fault in her. Then was this very faultlessness a fault and the mother -muttered, “Well, and doubtless she has some secret inner fault I do not -see at once.” - -For the son’s wife did not, as some maids do, set forth all that she -was at once. She was diligent and she was smooth and quick at work and -when the work was done she sat and sewed on something for her husband -but all she did was done in her own careful way. - -Now there are not two women in this world who do the same task alike, -and this the mother had not known, thinking all did as she did. But no, -this son’s wife had her own way of doing all. When she cooked the rice -she put too much water in, or so the mother thought, and the rice came -out softer than the mother was used or liked to have it. And she told -the son’s wife so, but that one shut her pale lips smoothly and said, -“But so I ever do it.” And she would not change. - -Thus it was with everything. This and that about the house she changed -to her own liking, not quickly nor in any temper, but in a small, -careful, gradual way, so that it gave the mother no handle to lay her -anger on. There was another thing. The young wife did not like the -smell of beasts at night, and made complaint, but not to the older -woman, only to the man, until he set to work that same winter to add a -room to the house where they could move the bed in and sleep alone. -And the older woman looked on astonished at such new ways. - -At first she said to the blind maid that she would not be angry with -the son’s wife. And indeed it was not easy to be angry quickly, for the -young wife did well and worked carefully, so that it was hard to say -“this is wrong” or “you did not do that well.” But there were things -the mother hated somehow, though most she loathed the softened rice and -of it she grumbled often and at last aloud, “I never do feel full and -fed with such soft stuff. There is naught to set my teeth down on--this -watery stuff, it passes my belly like a wind and does not lie like firm -good food.” And when she saw her son’s wife pay no heed to this she -went secretly to her son one day where he worked in the field and there -she said, “Son, why do you not bid her cook the rice more dry and hard? -I thought you used to like it so.” - -The son stopped his labor then and stayed himself a moment on his hoe -and said in his calm way, “I like it as she does it very well.” - -Then the mother felt her anger rise and she said, “You did not use to -like it so and it means you have joined yourself to her instead of me. -It is shameful that you like her so and go against your mother.” - -Then the red came flooding into the young man’s face and he said -simply, “Aye, I like her well enough,” and fell to his hoe again. - -From that day on the mother knew the two were masters in the house. -The eldest son was not less kind than usual and he did his work well -and took the money into his own hand. It was true he did not spend it, -nor did his wife, for the two were a saving pair, but they were man and -wife and this their house and land, and to them the mother was but the -old woman in the house. It was true that if she spoke of field or seed -and of all the labor that she knew so well because it had been hers, -they let her speak, but yet when she had finished it was as though she -had not spoken, and they made their plans and carried all on as they -liked. It seemed to her she was nothing any more, her wisdom less than -nothing in the house that had been hers. - -Very bitter was it for anyone to bear and when the new room was made -and the pair moved into it, the mother muttered to the blind girl who -slept beside her, “I never saw such finicking as this, as though the -honest smell of beasts was poison! I do swear they made that room so -they could be away from us and talk their plans we cannot hear. They -never tell me anything. It is not the beasts--it is that your brother -loves her shamefully. Yes, they care nothing for you or for your little -brother, nor even for me, I know.” And when the girl did not answer she -said, “Do you not think so, too, my maid? Am I not right?” - -Then the maid hesitated and she said after a while out of the darkness, -“Mother, it is true I have something to say I would say and yet I -would not, lest it grieve you.” - -Then the mother cried out, “Say on, child. I am used to grief, I think.” - -And then the maid asked in a small sad voice, “Mother, what will you do -with me, blind as I am?” - -Now all this time the mother had not thought otherwise than that this -maid would live on here with her a while at least and she said in -surprise, “What do you mean, my maid?” - -And the maid said, “I do not mean my brother’s wife is not kind--she is -not cruel, mother. But I think she does not dream you will not wed me -soon. I heard her ask my little brother but the other day where I was -betrothed, and when he said I was not she said surprised, ‘A great maid -to be without a mother-in-law still.’” - -“But you are blind, child,” said the mother, “and it is not so easy to -wed a blind maid.” - -“I know it,” said the maid gently. And after a while she spoke again, -and this time as though her mouth were very dry and as though her -breath came hot. “But you know there are many things I can do, mother, -and there may be some very poor man, a widower, perhaps, or some such -poor man who would be glad of the little I could do if he need pay -nothing for me, and then would I be in my own house and there would be -someone if you were gone whom I could care for. Mother, I do not think -my sister wants me.” - -But the mother answered violently, “Child, I will not have you go to -mend some man’s house like that! We are poor, I know, but you can be -fed. Widowers are often the hardest and lustiest husbands, child. So go -to sleep and think no more of this. Hearty I am yet and likely to live -a long full time yet, and your brother was never cruel to you, even as -a child.” - -“He was not wed then, mother,” said the girl, sighing. But she stayed -silent then and seemed to sleep. - -But the mother could not sleep a while, although on usual nights she -slept deep and sound. She lay there thinking hard, and taking up the -days past, one by one, to see if what the girl had said was true, and -though she could not think of any single thing, it seemed to her the -son’s wife was not warm. No, she was not very warm to the younger lad -either, and at least not warm to this blind sister in her husband’s -house, and here was new bitterness for the mother to bear. - - - - -XV - - -Every day the mother watched to see if what the girl had said was true, -and it was true. The young wife was not rude, and her words came from -her smoothly and with seeming careful courtesy always. But she put upon -the maid a hundred little pricks. She gave the blind maid less than her -full bowl of food, or so it seemed in the mother’s eyes, and if there -were some dainty on the table she did not give her any, and the blind -maid, not seeing, did not know it was there. And indeed they would all -have let it pass, not heeding in their own hunger, had not the mother’s -eyes been sharpened, and she cried out, “Daughter, do you not like this -dish of pig’s lungs we have cooked in soup today?” - -And when the maid answered gently in surprise, “I did not know we had -it, mother, and I like it very well,” then the mother would reach over -and with her own spoon dip the meat and soup into the maid’s bowl, -and be sure the son’s wife saw the mother do it, and she answered -smoothly and courteously, scarcely moving her pale lips that with all -their paleness were too thick, too, and she said, “I beg your pardon, -sister--I did not see you had none.” But the mother knew she lied. - -And sometimes when the son’s wife sewed shoes for the maid, and it was -her duty to make shoes for them all, she put no time on the maid’s -shoes beyond what she must, and she made the soles thin and spared -herself the labor of a flower upon the front, and when the mother saw -it she cried, “What--shall my maid not have a little flower such as you -have on all your shoes?” - -Then the son’s wife opened her little, dark, unshining eyes and said, -“I will make them if you say, mother, only I thought since she was -blind and could not see a color anyhow--and I have so many to make -shoes for, and the younger lad wearing out a pair each month or two -with all his running into town to play--” - -As for the blind maid who sat there on the threshold in the sun, when -she heard this and heard the complaint her sister made against the -younger brother, she cried out in mild haste, “Mother, indeed I do not -care for the flower, and my sister is right. What are flowers to the -blind?” - -So it seemed no quarrel and all the many small things seemed no -quarrel. Yet one day the eldest son came to his mother, when she went -around the house alone to pour some waste into the pig’s hole, and he -said, “Mother, I have a thing to say to you, and it is not that I would -urge my sister out of the house or grudge her anything. But a man must -think of his own, and she is young, mother, and all her life is ahead -of her, and shall I feed her all her life? I have not heard it so in -any other house, that a man must feed his sister, unless it were some -rich house where food is never missed. A man’s duty it is to feed his -parents, his wife and his children. But there she is, young and like to -live as long as I do, and it will be an ill thing for her, too, if she -is not wed. Better for all women to be wed.” - -Then the mother looked at her son, her face set in anger against him, -and she said, accusing him, “That wife of yours has put this thought -into you, my son. You lie there with her alone in that room and there -you talk, the two of you, and she poisons you against your own blood -with all she says to you in the night. And you--you are like all -men--soft as mud in a ditch when you lie in bed with a woman.” - -She turned away most bitterly, and she poured the stuff out for the pig -and stood and watched it put its snout in and gobble, but she did not -really see it, although commonly it was a thing to give her pleasure to -see a beast feed heartily. No, she said on in sadness, “And what sort -of man will have your sister? Who can we hope will have her save some -man too poor for kindness, or a man whose wife is gone and he left and -too poor to wed a sound woman again?” - -Then the son said hastily, “I think of her, too. I do think of her and -I think it is better for her to have a man of her own, even though she -cannot have so good a one as though she were whole.” - -“This is your wife who speaks, my son,” the mother said more sadly -still. - -But the man made answer in his stubborn way, “We are of one heart on -this,” and when his mother said, “On everything, I fear,” he said no -more but went to his fields, silent but unchanged. - -Nevertheless the mother wilfully would not for long do anything to wed -the maid. She told herself and told the maid and told her younger son -and her cousin’s wife and any who would listen to her that she was not -so old yet she could not have her own way and not so old she had no -place in the house and not so old she could be bid like any child to do -this or that or what she did not wish to do. She set herself against -her son and son’s wife in this and herself she guarded the maid well -and saw that nothing was done amiss to her nor that she was deprived of -anything the others had. - -But as the son’s wife grew more accustomed she grew more plain in -speech and more complaining and courtesy dropped from her. She often -said now where others heard her or when the women sat together about -some door in the sun and sewed in company or had some gathering such -as women love, then she said, “What I shall do when children come I do -not know, seeing how I have to sew for all these in the house now. My -mother grows old and I know it is my duty to do for her and be her eyes -and hands and feet and all she needs. I have been taught so, and so I -do and I hope I am always careful of my duty. But here this hungry -second lad is and he does nothing, and here worse than he, for some day -he must wed and his wife will work to feed and clothe him, here is this -blind maid not wed and I do wonder if she is to be my care her whole -life long, for her mother will not wed her.” - -Such words as these she said and others like them and those who heard -stared at the blind maid if she were by so that she even felt their -gaze and hung her head ashamed to live as such a burden. And sometimes -this one spoke or that one and said, “Well and there are many blind and -some families teach their blind to tell fortunes or some such thing and -earn a penny now and then. Yes, the blind often have an inward seeing -eye and they can see things we cannot and their blindness is even a -power to them so that other people fear them for it. This maid might be -taught to soothsay or some such thing.” - -And others said, “But there are poor houses, too, where they have a son -and no money to wed him with and they will take a fool or a blind maid -or one halt or dumb and count her better than none if they can get her -for nothing for their son.” - -Then the son’s wife said discontentedly, “I wish I knew some such one, -and if you hear of any, neighbors, I would take it for a kindness if -you would tell me so.” And being kind they promised the young wife, and -they agreed that truly it was hard when money was so scarce and times -so poor that she must feed this extra mouth that properly belonged -elsewhere. - -One day the gossip who was a widow came to the mother and she said, -“Goodwife, if you would like to wed that blind maid of yours, I know -a family in the hills to the north and they have a son seventeen or -so now. They came in famine times from a northern province and they -settled on some wild public land not in our village at the mountain’s -foot, but up a little higher, and after a while a brother came, and -there they live. The land is poor and they are poor, but so be you -poor, too, goodwife, and your maid blind, and if you will only pay my -going I will go and see to it for you. The truth is I have been minded -for this long time to go home and see my own father’s house, but I am -loath to ask my husband’s brother for the bit to do it with. A very -hard thing is it to be widow in another’s house.” - -At first the mother would not listen and she said loudly, “I can tend -my own blind maid, goodwife!” - -This afterwards she told her cousin’s wife and the cousin too, but the -cousin looked grave a while and he said at last, “So could you tend her -if you lived forever, sister, but when you are dead, and we dead too, -perhaps, or very old and not masters any more before our children save -in name, then who will tend her? And what if bad years come and parents -must think first of their own children, and you gone?” - -Then the mother was silent. - -But soon she saw the truth that she could not live forever, at any time -her life might end, the sooner, too, perhaps, because she had never had -her own old vigor since that secret night. - -In the summer of that year a flux came out of the air and laid its hold -upon her. Ever she had loved to eat and eat heartily and all she wanted -of what there was. But that summer came more than usually hot and there -was a mighty pest of flies, so many everywhere that the winds blew them -in the food and flies were mingled whether one would have it so or not, -and the mother cried out at last to let them be, for there was no use -in killing them and it was but a waste of time so many more came after. -It was a summer, too, of great watermelons that when they were split -showed darkly red or clear and yellow as their sort was, and never had -there been a better year for melons than was that. - -Now well the mother loved this fruit, and she ate heartily of all such -as could not be sold or such as grew too ripe suddenly beneath the sun, -and she ate on and on and when she was filled, she ate yet more to keep -the things from being wasted. Whether it was the many melons or whether -some wicked wind caught her or whether someone laid a curse upon her, -although she did not know of one who really hated her unless it were -that little goddess who had guessed her sin, or what it was she did not -know. But the flux came on her and it dragged her very inwards out and -she lay ill for days, purged and retching up so much as a mouthful of -tea she swallowed to stay herself if she could. - -In these days when she was so racked and weak the son’s wife did all -well and everything she knew to do for her husband’s mother’s sake, nor -was she lacking in any small duty. The blind maid strove to do her poor -best too for her mother, but she was slow and could not see a need in -time, and often the son’s wife pushed the maid aside and said, “Do you -sit down somewhere, good sister, and out of my way, for I swear you are -the most help so!” - -Even against her will then did the mother come to lean, in all her -weakness, on this quick and careful younger woman, and she was too -weak to defend her blind maid, and the younger son these days came but -sometimes to see how she did and went away again somewhere because his -mother was too weak to say a word for him against his brother. In such -weakness it was a strength to the mother to feel the young wife deft -and careful about her bed. When at last the flux passed out of her and -to some other person destined for it, and the mother rose at last, she -leaned hard upon her son’s wife, though she did not love her either, -but only needed her. - -It took the mother very long to come somewhat to herself again, and -she was never wholly sound again. She could not eat the rough cabbages -she loved, nor any sort of melon nor the peanuts she had liked to chew -raw from the ground when they were dug, and ever after this she had to -think what she ate, to see how it suited itself to her inwards, and if -she grew impatient with such finicking and cried out that she would eat -what she would and liked and her belly must bear it, why, then the flux -came back again. Or even if she worked too hard or sat in any small -cold wind that evil illness waited for her and made her helpless for a -while again. - -Then in her helplessness she saw the blind maid must be wed into some -house of her own, for it was true she was not welcome here. When the -mother was too weak to cry against it, she saw the maid was ill at ease -there and felt herself unwanted, and one day the maid came herself at a -moment when her mother was alone and she said, “Mother, I cannot stay -here in my brother’s house. Oh, mother, I think I would sooner be wed -anywhere so that I could be somewhere I was wanted!” - -Then the mother said no more against it. She comforted her daughter -with a word or two and one day in the winter of that year when she felt -stronger than she had, forever after she was better in the cold than in -the heat, she went and sought the gossip out. There the old gossip sat -in her doorway, stitching flowers still upon a bit of cloth, although -her thread was very coarse these days and the edge of the flowers -she made a thing to laugh at for she could not see as once she had, -although she would not say she could not, and when the mother found -her she said wearily, “What you said was true. I see my maid would be -better wed and let it be to that one you know, for I am too weary to -look here and there, and always weary somehow nowadays since that flux -took me a year or two agone.” - -Then the old gossip was glad to have something new to do that cost her -nothing and she hired a barrow and on it rode the ten miles or so to -the valley where her father’s house had been and to the village, and -there she stayed a day or two and more. On the night when she returned -she went to the mother’s house and called her out alone to the corner -of the house and whispered, “The thing went very well, goodwife, and in -a month it can be finished. Well, and I am very weary, too, but still I -remember I did it all for you, goodwife, and we are old friends now.” - -Then the woman took from her bosom a piece of silver she had kept there -for this hour and she pressed it on the gossip. But the gossip pushed -her hand away and swore she would not have it and it was not needful -between two friends and she said this and that but had it in the end. - -When all was done and the woman thought it well, or tried to, she told -the son’s wife, and the son’s wife was pleased and showed it, although -she took care to say, “You need not have hastened so, mother, for I -bear the maid no ill will and she may stay here a year or two for all -of me, and I would not mind if it were even all her life, if it were -not we are so poor we must count the mouths we feed.” - -But she was more kindly for the while and she offered of her own will -to sew new garments for the maid, three in all, a new coat and trousers -of dark blue and some red trousers for her wedding day, as even the -poorest maid must have, and besides these a pair of shoes or two, and -on the shoes she made a little flower and leaf in red. But they made -no great wedding day of it nor any great ado, since the maid was given -free and there were no gifts given because she was not good bargain for -the man she was to wed. - -As for the maid, she said nothing of the day. She listened when her -mother told her what was done and she said nothing save once in the -night she put out her hand to feel her mother’s face near her, and -she whispered to her mother suddenly, “Mother, but is it too far for -you to come and see me sometimes and how I do there? I am so blind I -cannot come to you so far along a road I do not know and over hills and -valleys.” - -Then the mother put out her hand too and she felt the maid trembling -and she wept secretly and wiped her tears in the darkness on the quilt -and she said over and over, “I will come, my maid, be sure and I will -come, and when I come you shall tell me all and if they do not treat -you well I will see to it heartily. You shall not be treated ill.” -And then she said most gently, “But you have lain sleepless all this -night.” - -And the maid answered, “Yes, and every night a while.” - -“But you need not be afraid, child,” the mother answered warmly. “You -are the best and quickest blind maid I ever saw, and they know you -blind and they cannot blame you for it nor say we hid it from them.” - -But long after the maid had fallen into light sleep at last the mother -lay and blamed herself most heavily, for somehow she felt some wrong -within herself that laid its punishment upon the maid, though how she -did not know, only she wished she had been better. And she blamed -herself lest if by any chance she should have found a nearer place to -wed her maid, a village where she could go each month or so, or even -found a poor man willing to move to the hamlet for a little price that -she could promise. Yet even when she thought of this she groaned within -her heart and doubted that her son and son’s wife would have spared -even this small price, for they kept the money now. So she thought most -heavily, “Yet I cannot hope she will never be beaten. Few houses be -there like ours where neither man nor his mother will beat a maid new -come. And it would tear my heart so, and so grieve me if I saw my blind -maid beaten or even if it was done near enough so I could hear of it, -or so the maid could run home and tell me, and I helpless once she is -wed, that I think I could not bear it. Better far to have her where -I cannot see her and where I cannot know and so be saved the pain -because I cannot see and so can hope.” - -And after she had lain a while more and felt how heavy life lay on her -she thought of one thing she could do, and it was that she could give -the maid some silver coins for her own, as her own mother had done -when she left home. So in the darkness before dawn she rose and moving -carefully not to stir the beasts and fowls and frighten them she went -to her hole and smoothed away the earth and took out the bit of rag she -kept the little store in and opened it and chose out five pieces of -silver and thrust them in her bosom and covered the hole again. Then -with the silver in her bosom a little comfort came and she thought to -herself, “At least it is not every maid who comes from a poor house -with a little store of silver. At least my maid has this!” - -And holding fast on this small comfort she slept at last. - - * * * * * - -Thus the days passed and none joyfully. No, the woman took no joy even -in her youngest son and cared little whether he came and went except -she saw that he was well and smiling with some business of his own she -did not know. So the day came at last when the maid must go and the -woman waited with the heaviest heart to see what was the one who came -to fetch her. Yes, she strained her heart to understand what sort of -man it was who came and fetched her maid away. - -It was a day in early spring he came, before the year had opened fully -so that spring was only seen in a few hardy weeds the children in the -village digged to eat and in a greenish tinge along the willow twigs -and the brown buds on the peach trees scarcely swollen yet. All the -lands lay barren still with winter, the wheat not growing yet and but -small spears among the clods, and the winds cold. - -On this day one came, an old man riding on a gray ass without a saddle -and sitting on an old and filthy ragged coat folded under him upon the -beast’s back. He came to the house where the mother was and gave his -name. Her heart stopped then in her bosom, for she did not like the -way this old man looked. He grinned at her and shaped his lips to be -kind, but there was no kindness in the sharp old fox’s face, sharp eyes -set in deep wrinkles, a few white hairs about a narrow lipless mouth -curved down too long to smile with any truth this day. He wore garments -well-nigh rags, too, not patched or clean, and when he came down from -his ass there was no common courtesy in his manner, such as any man -may have whether he be learned or not. He came limping across the -threshing-floor, one leg too short to match the other, his old garments -tied about him at the waist, and he said roughly, “I am come to fetch a -blind maid. Where is she?” - -Then the mother said, for suddenly she hated this old man, “But what -pledge have you that you are the one to have her?” - -The old man grinned again and said, “I know that fat goodwife who came -to tell us we might have the maid for nothing for my brother’s son.” - -Then the woman said, “Wait until I call her.” And she sent her younger -lad who lounged about the house that day, and the old gossip came as -quickly as her old legs would bear her and she stared at the man and -laughed and shouted, “Aye, it is the uncle of the lad she is to wed. -How are you, goodman, and have you eaten yet this day?” - -“Aye,” said the old man grinning and showing all his toothless gums, -“but not too well I swear.” - -All this time the mother looked at him most steadfastly and then she -cried out bluntly to the gossip, “I do not like the looks of this! I -thought better than this for my maid!” - -And the gossip answered loudly laughing, “Goodwife, he is not the -bridegroom--his nephew is as soft and mild a lad as ever you did see.” - -By now the cousin’s wife was come too and the son and son’s wife and -the cousin came and others from the hamlet and they all stood and -stared at this old man and it was true that to all he was no good one -for looks and ways of any kindness. Yet was the promise given, and -there were those who said, “Well, goodwife, you must bear in mind the -maid is blind.” - -And the son’s wife said, “The thing is set and promised now, mother, -and it is hard now to refuse, for it will bring trouble on us all -if you refuse.” And when he heard her say this her husband kept his -silence. - -The woman looked piteously at her cousin then, and he caught her look -and turned his eyes away and scratched his head a while, for he did not -know what to say. He was a simple good man himself and he did not trust -too much this old man’s looks either; still it is hard to say sometimes -if poverty and evil are the same thing, and it might be his ragged -garments made him look so ill, and it was hard to say nay when all the -thing was set and done, and so not knowing what to say he said nothing -and turned his head away and picked up a small straw and chewed on it. - -But the gossip saw her honor was in danger and she said again and -again, “But this is not the bridegroom, goodwife,” and at last she -called, for it would shame her much if the thing were not done now, -“Old man, your brother’s son is soft as any babe, is he not?” - -And the old man grinned and nodded and laughed a meager laugh and said, -wheezing as he spoke with laughter, “Aye, soft as any babe he is, -goodwife!” And at last he said impatiently, “I must be gone if I am to -fetch her home by night!” - -So not knowing what else to do, the mother set her maid upon the ass’s -back at last, the maid garbed in her new garments, and the mother -pressed into her hand the little packet of silver and whispered -quickly, “This is for your own, my maid, and do not let them have it -from you.” And as the old man kicked the ass’s legs to set it going the -mother cried aloud in sudden agony, “I will come, my maid, before many -months are past and see how they do treat you there, and keep all in -your heart and tell me then. I shall not fear to bring you home again, -my maid, if aught is wrong.” - -Then the blind maid answered through her dry and trembling lips, “Yes, -mother, and that cheers me.” - -But the mother could not let her child go yet and she cast here and -there desperately in her mind to think of some last thing to say -and hold her yet a little longer, and she cried out to the old man, -clinging to her maid, “My maid is not to feed the fire, old man,--she -shall not feed the fire, for it hurts her eyes--the smoke--” - -The old man turned and stared and when he understood he grinned and -said, “Oh, aye, well, let it be so--I’ll tell them--” and kicked the -beast again and walked beside it as it went. - -So the maid went away, and she held her sign of blindness in her hand, -and had her little roll of garments tied behind her on the ass’s back. -The mother stood and watched her go, her heart aching past belief, -tears welling from her eyes, and this although she did not know what -else she could have done. So she stood still until the hill rose -between and cut the child from her sight and she saw her no more. - - - - -XVI - - -Now must the mother somehow make her days full to ease the fears she -had and to forget the emptiness where once the blind maid had sat. -Silent the house seemed and silent the street where she could not -hear the clear plaintive sound of the small bell her daughter struck -whenever she went out. And the mother could not bear it. She went to -the land again, against her elder son’s will, and when he saw her take -her hoe he said, “Mother, you need not work, it shames me to have you -work in the field and others see you there when you are aged.” - -But she said with her old anger, “I am not so aged--let me work to ease -myself. Do you not see how I must ease myself?” - -Then the man answered in his stubborn way, “To me you seem to grieve -for what is not so, my mother, and there is no need to let your heart -run ahead into evils that may never come.” - -But the mother answered with a sort of heavy listlessness that did not -leave her nowadays, “You do not understand. You who are young--you -understand nothing at all.” - -The young man looked dazed at his mother then, not knowing what she -meant, but she would say no more, but went and took a hoe and plodded -out across the fields in silence. - -But it was true she could not work hard any more, for when she did her -sweat poured out, and when the wind blew on her, even a warm wind, it -sent a chill upon her and she was soon ill again with her flux. So must -she bear her idleness and she worked no more when she was well again, -but sat in the doorway idle. There was no need for her to lift her hand -about the house, since the son’s wife did all and did all well and -carefully. - -She did all well, the mother thought unwillingly, except she bore no -child. The mother sitting empty there looked restlessly about that -threshold where once she had been wont to see her little children -tumbling in their play, and all day long she sat and remembered the -days gone, and how once she had sat so young and filled with life and -work, her man there, her babes, she the young wife and another the old -mother. Then her man was gone and never heard from--and she winced and -turned her mind from that, and then she thought how empty it seemed -now, the elder son in the field all day or bickering at harvest with -the landlord’s agent, some new fellow, a little weazened cousin of the -landlord’s, people said--she never looked at him--and her blind maid -gone, and her younger son gone always in the town and seldom home. - -Well, but there was her younger son, and as she sat she thought of him -more often, for she loved him still the best of all her children. Into -her emptiness he came now and then, and with his coming brought her -only brightness. When he came she rose and came out of her bleakness -and smiled to see his good looks. He was the fairest child she had, as -like his father as a cockerel is like a cock who fathered him, and he -came in at ease nowadays, and not fearing his elder brother as once he -did, for he had some sort of work in town that brought him in a wage. - -Now what this work was he never clearly said, except that it brought -him in so well that sometimes he had a heap of money, and sometimes he -had none, although he never showed this money to his brother, except -in the good clothes he wore. But there were times when he was free and -filled with some excitement and then he pressed a bit of silver into -his mother’s hand secretly and said, “Take it, mother, and use it for -yourself.” - -Then the mother took the silver and praised the lad and loved him, for -the elder son never thought to put a bit of money in her hand; since he -had been master he kept all his silver for his own. Well fed she always -was and she ate heartily as she was able for she loved her food, and -better than she had ever been she was with this son’s wife to clothe -her and make all she needed, and even her burial garments were made and -ready for her, though she did not think to die yet for a long time. -Anything she asked for they let her have, a pipe to comfort her, and -good shredded tobacco and a sup of yellow wine made hot. But they did -not think to put a bit of silver in her hand and say, “Use it for any -little thing you wish,” and she knew, if she had asked for it the son -and his wife would look at each other and say, one or the other of -them, “But what would you buy--do we not give you everything?” So when -the younger son brought her the bit of silver she loved him for it more -than all else the other two did for her, and she kept it in her bosom -and when the night came she rose and hid it in the hole. - -But still he was not often where she could see him and there upon the -empty threshing-floor the two women sat, mother and son’s wife, and -to the mother it seemed all the house was full of emptiness. She sat -and sighed and smoked her pipe and all she had to do these days was -to think of her life, or nearly all, for there was that one thing she -would not think of willingly, and when she did it brought her blind -maid to her mind and she never could be sure the two were not linked -somehow in the hands of the gods. Sometimes she would have gone to -some temple to seek a comfort of some sort, though what she did not -know, but there was the old sin and it seemed late now to seek for -forgiveness and she let it be and sighed and spoke of her blind maid -sadly sometimes. - -But if she did the son’s wife answered always sharply, “She does well, -doubtless--a very lucky thing for all that you found one who would have -her for his son.” - -“Now she is a clever maid, too, daughter-in-law,” the mother said -hotly. “You never would believe how much she could do, I know, but -before you came she did much that when you came you would not let her -do and so you never knew how well she did.” - -“Aye, it may be so,” said the son’s wife, holding nearer to her eyes -the cloth she sewed on to see if it were right. “But I am used to -working on and finishing with what I do and a blind maid potters so.” - -The mother sighed again and said, looking over the empty threshold, -“I wish you would bear a babe, daughter. A house should have a child -or two or three in it. I am not used to such an empty house as this. -I wish my little son could wed if you are not to have a child, but he -will not, somehow, for some reason.” - -Now here was the young wife’s grief, that though she had been wed near -upon five years she had no child yet and not a sign of one, and she had -gone secretly to a temple to pray and had done all she knew and still -her body stayed as barren as it had been. But she was too proud to show -how grieved she was and now she said, calmly, “I will have sons in -time, doubtless.” - -“Aye, but it is time,” the mother said pettishly. “I never heard of -any women in our hamlet who had not babes if they had husbands. Our -men are fathers as soon as they mate themselves and the women always -fertile--good seed, good soil. It must be you have some hidden illness -in you somewhere to make you barren and unnatural. I made you those -clothes full and big, and what use has it been!” - -And to the cousin’s wife the mother complained, and she said, leaning -to put her mouth against the other’s ear, “I know very well what is -wrong--there are no heats in that son’s wife of mine. She is a pale -and yellow thing and one day is like the next and there is never any -good flush in her from within, and all your luck in cutting her wedding -garments cannot prevail against her coldness.” - -And the cousin’s wife nodded and laughed and said, “It is true enough -that such pale and bloodless women are very slow to bear.” Then her -little laughing eyes grew meaningful and she laughed again and said, -“But not every woman can be so full of heats as you were in your time, -good sister, and well you know it is not always a good thing in a -woman!” - -Then the mother answered hastily, “Oh, aye, I know that--” and fell -silent for a time and then after a while she said unwillingly, “It is -true she is a careful woman, clean and almost too clean and scraping -out the pot so often I swear she wastes the food with so much washing -of the oil jar and the like. And she washes herself every little time -or so, and it may be this is why she goes barren. Too much washing is -not always well.” - -But she spoke no more of heats, for she feared to have the cousin’s -wife bring up again that old ill done, although the cousin’s wife was -the kindest soul and never all these years had made a difference of it, -and if she had even told her man then the mother never knew she did. If -it had not been for these two sorrows that she had, the blind maid and -that her son had no sons, she might have forgotten it herself, so far -away the days of her flesh seemed now. Yes, she might have forgotten -it if she had not feared it had been sin and these two sorrows the -punishment for it. - -But there her life was, and the maid was blind and gone now and there -was no child, and only the beasts about and the dog and even these she -dared not feed. - -There was only this good thing nowadays, she thought, and it was that -her two sons did not quarrel so much. The elder was satisfied and -master in the house, and the younger had his own place somewhere, and -when he came home and went away again, the most the elder son did was -to say with feeble scorn, “I wonder where my brother gets those good -clothes he wears and what the work is that he does. I cannot wear -clothes like his and I work bitterly. He seems to have money somehow. I -hope he is not in some band of town thieves or something that will drag -us into trouble if he is caught.” - -Then the mother flew up bravely as she always did for her little son -and she said, “A very good younger brother, my son, and you should -praise him and be glad he has gone and found a thing to do for himself -and not stayed here to share the land with you!” - -And the elder son said sneeringly, “Oh, aye, he would do anything I -swear to keep from labor on the land.” - -But the son’s wife said nothing. She was pleased these days because the -house was all her own and it was naught to her what the young man did, -and she did not complain because he bought his clothes elsewhere now -and she needed not to make them for him. - - * * * * * - -So the time went on and spring came and passed and early summer came -and still the mother never could forget her maid. One day she sat -counting on her fingers the days since that one when she saw the hill -cut the maid off from her sight, and it was more than twelve times -all the fingers on her hands and then she lost the count, and so she -thought sadly, “I must go to her. I have let this old heaviness weigh -on me and I ought to have gone before. If she had been a sound maid -she would have come by now to pay the visit that wives do to their old -homes, and I could have asked her how she did and felt her hands and -arms and cheeks and seen the color of her face.” - -And the mother sat and looked at those hills around and saw how the -summer came on to its full height and every hillside was green and all -the grain high in the fields, and she forced her body that was weary -always now even though she was idle all the livelong day, and she -thought, “I must go and see my maid and I will go at once, seeing I am -not needed on the land and here I sit idle. I will go and before the -great heat comes, lest my flux drop on me again unaware. Yes--I will -go this very tomorrow since there is no sign of cloud in this fair -sky--this blue sky--” she looked up at the sky and saw how blue it was -and remembered suddenly as she did nowadays some bit of her life long -gone, and she remembered the blue robe her man had bought once and that -he wore away and she sighed and thought with some dim old pang, “On -such a day as this he bought the robe and we quarreled--on just such a -fair day, for I remember the robe was the color of the sky that day.” -She sighed and rose to drive the thought away and when her elder son -came she said restlessly, “I think to go and see your sister tomorrow, -and how she does in the house where she was wed, seeing she cannot come -to me.” - -Then the son said, anxiously, “Mother, I cannot go with you now, for -there is work to do tomorrow. Wait until the harvest is over and the -grain threshed and measured, and I have a little free time.” - -But suddenly the mother could not wait. There was strength in her a -plenty yet when she had something she set her mind to do, and she -was weary of her idleness and sitting and she said, “No, I will go -tomorrow!” - -And the son said, worried still and he was always easily worried if -aught came that was sudden and out of the common and he could not -think what to do quickly, “But how will you go, mother?” - -She said, “Why, I will ride my cousin’s ass if he will lend it, and do -you bid a lad of his to go and call your brother to walk beside and -lead the ass, and we will go safe enough, the two of us, for there are -no robbers near these days that I have heard tell of, except that new -kind in the town they call the communists, who do not harm the poor, -they say--” - -At last the son was willing, though not too easily and not until his -wife said quietly, “It is true I cannot see any great danger if the -younger one goes with her.” - -So they let the mother have her way at last, and the cousin’s lad was -sent to town to search until he found the younger son and so he did -and came back wide-eyed and said, “My cousin and your second son will -come, aunt.” And then he thought a while and twisted the button on his -coat and said again, “I swear it is a strange and secret place where he -lives and a hard place to find. He lives in a long room full of beds, -some twenty beds or so above a shop, and the room is filled with books -and papers. But he does not work in the shop for I asked him. I did not -know my cousin could read, aunt. If he reads those books he must be -very learned.” - -“He cannot read,” the mother said astonished. “He never told me that he -lived by books, a very strange odd thing, I swear! I must ask him of -it.” - -The next day when she was on the ass and they went winding through the -valleys she took the chance of being alone with him and she did ask her -son, “What are those books and papers that my cousin’s son says you -have in that room where you all live? You never told me you could read -or that you live by books. I never saw you read a word, my son.” - -Then the young man stopped the little song he had been singing as they -went for he had a good voice to sing and loved to sing, and he said, -“Aye, I have learned a little.” And when she pressed him further he -said, evading her, “Mother, do not ask me now, for some day you will -know everything and when the hour comes. A great day, mother, and I was -singing of it just now, a song we sing together where I work, and on -that day we shall all be eased, and there shall be no more rich and no -more poor and all of us shall have the same.” - -Now this was the wildest talk the mother had ever heard, for well she -knew heaven wills who shall be rich and who shall be poor, and men have -naught to say but take their destiny and bear it, and she cried out -afraid, “I hope you are not in some wicked company, my son, not with -thieves or some such company! It sounds the way robbers talk, my son! -There is no other way for poor to be rich than that, and it is ill to -be rich and lose your life if you be caught at it!” - -But the young man grew angry at this and said, “Mother, you do not -understand at all! I am sworn to silence now, but some day you shall -know. Yes, I shall not forget you on that day. But only you. I will -not share with any who have not shared with me.” This last he said so -loudly that she knew he felt against his brother and so she was silent -for a while, fearing to rouse his wrath. - -But she could not let him be. She sat as bid upon the ass and clung -to the beast’s hairy skin and thought about this son and looked at -him secretly. There he walked ahead of her, the beast’s halter in his -hand, and now he was singing again, some song she had never heard, some -beating fiery song whose words she could not catch, and she thought to -herself that she must know more of his life. Yes, and she must bind -him somehow more closely to his home and to them all. She would wed -him and have his wife there in the house. Then would he often come and -even live there, perhaps, for the wife’s sake. She would seek and find -a pretty, touching maid whom he could love, for the elder son’s wife -could do the work, and she would find another sort for this son. And as -she thought of this her heart was eased because it seemed a good way -and she could not keep it back and so she said, “Son, you are more than -twenty now, and near to twenty-one, and I think to wed you soon. How is -that for a merry thing?” - -But who can tell what a young man’s heart will be? Instead of smiling -silence, half pleased and half ashamed, he stopped and turned and -said to her most wilfully, “I have been waiting for you to say -some such thing--it is all that mothers’ heads run upon, I do -believe! My comrades tell me it is the chiefest thing their parents -say--wed--wed--wed! Well then, mother, I will not wed! And if you wed -me against my will, then shall you never see my face again! I never -will come home again!” - -He turned and went on more quickly and she dared not say a word, but -only sat amazed and frightened at his anger and that he did not sing -again. - -Yet she forgot all this now in what was to come. The path along which -they had come since early dawn grew narrower and more narrow toward -noon, and those hills which around their own valleys were so gently -shaped, so mild in their round curves against the sky and so green -with grass and bamboo, rose now as they went among them into sharper, -bolder lines. At last when noon was full and the sun poured its heat -down straight the gentle hills were gone, and in their place rose a -range of mountains bare and rocky and cruelly pointed against the sky. -They seemed the sharper too because the sky that day was so cloudless, -bright and hard and blue, above the sand color of the bare mountains. - -Beneath great pale cliffs the path wound, the stones not black and -dark, but pale as light in hue and very strange, and nothing grew -there, for there was no water anywhere. So the path wound up and yet -more up and when noon was passed an hour or two, they came suddenly -into a round deep valley in the mountain tops, and there some water -was, for there was a small square village enclosed about with a rocky -wall, and about it the green of a few fields. But when the mother and -her son stopped at the gate to that village and asked of the place -they sought, one who stood there pointed yet higher to a ridge and -said, “There where the green ends on that lower edge there are the two -houses. It is the last edge of green, and above it there are only rocks -and sky.” - -Now all this time the mother had stared astonished at these mountains -and at their strange wild shapes and paleness, and at the scanty green. -She had spent her life in the midst of valleys, and now as the path -wound up from the enclosed village she stared about aghast to see how -mortally poor the land was here and how shallow on the pale rocks the -soil was and how scanty all the crops, even now when harvest drew on, -and she cried out to the youth, “I do not like the looks of this place, -son! I doubt it is too hard a place for your sister. Well, we will take -her home, then. Yes, if it is too hard for her here I can walk and we -will put her on the ass, and let them say what they will. They paid -nothing for her, and I will ask nothing but her back again.” - -But the young man did not answer. He was weary and hungry, for they had -eaten but a bit of cold food they had brought with them, and he longed -to reach his sister’s house, for there they thought to spend the night. -He pulled at the ass’s bridle until the mother could not bear it and -was about to brave his anger and reprove him. - -Suddenly they came upon that house. Yes, there the two houses were, -caught upon the side of the ridge and stuck there somehow to the -rocks, and the mother knew this was where her maid was, for there the -ill-looking old man stood at the door of one of the two houses, and -when he saw her he stared as if he could not believe it was she, and -then he ran in and out came more people, another man, dark and lean and -wild in looks, and two women and a slack-hung youth, but not her blind -maid. - -The mother came down from her ass then and went near, and all these -stared at her in silence, and she looked back and was afraid. Never -had she seen such looks as these, the women’s hair uncombed and full -of burrs and their faces withered and blackened with the sun, their -garments never washed, and so were they all. They gathered there and -out of the other house came a sickly child or two, yellowed with some -fever, their lips parched and broken, and their bodies foul with filth, -and they all stared silently, and gave no greeting, their eyes as wild -and reasonless as beasts’ eyes are. - -Then did the mother’s heart break suddenly with fear and she ran -forward crying, “Where is my maid? Where have you hid my maid?” And she -ran into their midst, but the young man stood doubting and holding to -the ass. - -Then a woman spoke sullenly, and her speech was not easily understood, -some rude northern speech it was, and the sounds caught between her -broken teeth and nothing came out clear and she said, “You have come -well, goodwife. She has just died today.” - -“Died!” the mother whispered and said no more. Her heart stopped, her -breath was gone, she had no voice. But she pushed into the nearest hut -and there upon a bed of reeds thrown on the ground her blind maid lay. -Aye, there the maid was lying quietly and dead, dressed in the same -clothes she had when she left her home, but not clean now nor mended. -Of those new things there was no trace, for the room was empty save for -the heap of rushes and a rude stool or two. - -Then the mother ran and knelt beside her maid and stared down at the -still face and sunken eyes and at the patient little mouth and all the -face she knew so well. And suddenly she burst out crying and she fell -upon the maid and seized her hands and pushed the ragged sleeves back -and looked at her little arms and drew the trousers up her legs and -looked to see if they were bruised or beaten or harmed in any way. - -But there was nothing. No, the maid’s soft skin was all unbroken, the -slender bones whole, and there was nothing to be seen. She was pale and -piteously thin, but she was thin always and death is pale. Then did -the mother stoop and smell at the child’s lips to see if there was any -smell of poison, but there was no smell, nothing now except the faint -sad scent of death. - -Yet somehow the mother could not believe that this was any good and -usual death. She turned on those who stood about the door watching her -in silence, and she looked at them and saw their wild rude faces, not -one of which she knew, and she shouted at them through sudden great -weeping, “You have killed her--well I know you have--if you did not, -then tell me how did my maid die so soon, and she left me sound and -well!” - -Then the evil old man whom she had hated from the first time she saw -him grinned and said, “Be careful how you speak, goodwife! It is not a -small thing to say we killed her and--” - -But the sullen, rough-haired woman broke in screaming, “How did she -die? She died of a cold she caught, being so puny, and that is how -she died!” And she spat upon the ground and said again, screeching as -she said, “A useless maid she was, too, if there was one, and knowing -nothing--no, she could not even learn to fetch the water from the -spring and not stumble and fall or lose her way!” - -Then the mother looked and saw a narrow stony path leading down the -mountain to a small pool and she groaned and cried, “Is that the way -you mean?” But no one answered her and she cried out in further agony, -“You beat her--doubtless every day my maid was beaten!” - -But the woman answered quickly, “Search and see if there be bruises on -her! Once my son did beat her for she came to him too slowly, but that -is all!” - -The mother looked up then and said faintly, “Where is your son?” And -they pushed him forward, that son they had, and there he stood, a -gangling, staring lad, and the mother saw he was nearly witless. - -Then did the mother lay her head down upon her dead maid and weep and -weep most wildly, and more wildly still she wept when she thought of -what the maid had suffered, must have suffered, at such hands as these. -And while she wept the anger grew about her in those who watched her. -At last she felt a touch upon her and looking up she saw it was her -son, and he bent and whispered to her urgently, “Mother, we are in -danger here--I am afraid--we must not stay. Mother, she is dead now and -what more can you do? But they look so evil I do not know what they -will do to us. Come and let us hasten to the village and buy a little -food and then press on home tonight!” - -The mother rose then unwillingly, but as she looked she saw it was true -those people stood together close, and there was that about them to -make her fear, too, and she did not like their muttering nor the looks -they cast at her and at the youth. Yes, she must think of him. Let them -kill her if they would, but there was her son. - -She turned and looked down once more at her dead maid and put her -garments neat and laid her hands to her side. She went out into the -late afternoon. When they saw her calmer and that she made ready to -mount the ass again, the man, who had not spoken yet, and who was -father to the witless son, said, “Look you, goodwife, if you do not -think us honest folk, look at the coffin we have bought your child. Ten -pieces of silver did it cost us, and all we had, and do you think we -would have bought a coffin if we had not valued her?” - -The mother looked then, and there beside the door a coffin truly was, -but well she knew there were not ten pieces of silver in it, for it was -but the rudest box of unpainted board, and thin well-nigh as paper and -such a box as any pauper has. She opened her lips to make angry answer -and to say, “That box? But my maid’s own silver that I gave her would -have paid for that!” - -But she did not say the words. It came upon her like a chill cloud -across the day that she had need to fear these people. Yes, these two -evil men, these wild women--but there her son was tugging at her sleeve -to hasten her and so she answered steadily, “I will say nothing now. -The maid is dead and not all the angers in the world nor any words can -bring her back again.” She paused and looked at this one and at that -and then she said again, “Before heaven do you stand and all the gods, -and let them judge you, whatever you have done!” - -She looked at this one and that, but no one answered, and she turned -then and climbed upon the ass and the son made haste and led the ass -down the rocky path and turned shivering to see if they were followed -and he said, “I shall not rest until we are near that village once -again and where many people are, I am so fearful.” - -But the mother answered nothing. What need to answer anything? Her maid -was dead. - - - - -XVII - - -Crazed with her weariness was the mother when she came down from the -halting gray ass that night before her own door. She had wept all the -way home, now aloud and now softly, and the young man had been beside -himself again and again with his mother’s weeping. He cried out in an -agony at last, “Cease your wailing, mother, or I shall not be able to -bear it!” - -But when she calmed herself a little for his sake she broke forth again -and at last the young man ground his teeth together and he muttered -wildly, “If the day were come, if we were not so miserably poor, if the -poor were given their share and could defend themselves, then might we -sue for my sister’s life! But what use when we are so poor and there is -no justice in the land?” - -And the mother sobbed out, “It is true there is no use in going to law -since we have no money to pay our way in to justice,” and then she wept -afresh and cried, “But all the money and the justice under heaven would -not bring my blind maid back again.” - -At last the young man wept too, not so much for his sister nor even -for his mother, but because he was so footsore and so worn and his -world awry. - -Thus they came at last to their own door and when she was down from the -ass the mother called her elder son piercingly and so sharply that he -came running out and she cried, “Son, your sister is dead!” And while -he stared at her scarcely comprehending, she poured out the tale, and -at the sound of her voice others came quickly to hear the tale until -there in the dusk of night nearly all the hamlet stood to hear it. The -younger son stood there half fainting, leaning on the ass, and when -his mother talked on he went and threw himself upon the ground and lay -there dazed with what had come about this day, and he lay silent while -his mother wept and cried aloud and in her weeping said, looking with -her streaming eyes to this face and to that, “There my little maid was, -dead and gone, and I hate myself I ever let her go, and I would not -have let her go if it had not been for this cold-hearted son’s wife of -mine who begrudged the little maid a bit of meat and a little flower on -her shoe and so I was fearful if I died and the maid was afraid, too--a -little tender child who never would have left me of her own will! -What cared she for man or marriage and a child’s heart in her always, -clinging to her home and me? Oh, son, it is your wife who has brought -this on me--I curse the day she came and no wonder she is childless -with so hard a heart!” - -So on and on the mother cried and at first they all listened in -silence or exclaiming something when they had pieced the tale from what -she said between her weeping, and then they tried to comfort her, but -she would not let herself be comforted. The eldest son said nothing but -stood with downcast head until she cursed his wife and spoke against -her child-bearing, and then he said in a reasonable and quiet voice, -“No, mother, she did not bid you send my sister to that place. You -sent her so quickly and did not say a word to anyone but fixed it so -and we wondered even that you did not go and see how it was there for -yourself,” and he turned to his father’s cousin and he said, “Did you -not think so, cousin? Do you remember how I said we were surprised my -mother was so quick in the matter?” - -And the cousin turned his eyes away and muttered unwillingly, chewing a -bit of straw, “Oh, aye, a little quick,” and his wife who stood holding -a grandchild in her arms said mournfully to the mother, “Yes, it is -true, sister, you be a very quick woman always, and never asking anyone -if this or that is well to be done. No, before any of us know it or -guess what it is you are about you have done all and it is finished, -and you only want us to say you have done well. It is your nature all -your life to be like this.” - -But the mother could not bear blame this night and she cried out in -anger, and so turned her working angry face upon her cousin’s wife, -“You--you are used to that slow man of yours, and if we must be all -judged too quick by such as he--” - -And it looked for a time as though these two women who had been friends -all their lives would fall to bitter words now, except that the cousin -was so good and peaceable a man that when he saw his wife’s great -face grow red and that she was gathering up her wits to make a very -biting answer he called out, “Let be, mother of my sons! She is sore -with sorrow tonight and well beside herself.” And after he had chewed -a while upon his straw, he added mildly, “It is true that I am a very -slow man and I have heard it many times since I was born, and you have -told me so, too, mother of my sons.... Aye, I be slow.” And he looked -around upon his neighbors and one called out earnestly, “Aye, goodman, -you are a very slow-moving man for sure, and slow in wits and slow to -speak!” - -“Aye,” said the cousin sighing a little and spitting out the shattered -straw he chewed and plucking out a fresh one from the stack of rice -straw near which he stood. - -So was the quarrel averted. But the mother was not eased and suddenly -her eye fell on the old gossip standing in the crowd, her mouth ajar -and eyes staring and all her old hanging face listening to what went -on. Seeing her the mother’s anger and pain broke out afresh and it all -came out mingled with her agony and she rushed at the gossip and fell -on her and tore at her large fat face and snatched at her hair and -screamed at her and said, “Yes, and you knew what those folk were and -you knew the son was witless, and you never said a word of it but told -a tale of how they were plain country folk like us, and you never said -my maid must go up and down that rocky path to fetch water for them -all--it is all on you and I swear I shall not rest myself until I have -made you pay for it somehow--” - -And she belabored the gossip who was no match for the distraught mother -even at the best of times and there is no knowing how it might have -come about at the end if the son had not flown to part them and if the -younger son had not risen too and with his elder brother held their -mother so that the old gossip could make haste away, although she must -needs stand, too, for honor’s sake when she had gone a distance and far -enough so there were those who stood between them, and then she stopped -and cried, “Yes, but your maid was blind and what proper man would have -her? I did you a very good turn, goodwife, and here be all the thanks I -get for it.” And she beat her own breast and pointed to the scratches -on her face and fell to weeping and working herself up for a better -quarrel. - -But the crowd hastened her away, and the sons urged the mother into -the house and they forced her gently in and led her there, she weeping -still. But she was spent at last and let them lead her to her room, and -when she was come and they had sat her down, the son’s wife fetched -her a bowl of water very hot and soothing and she had been heating it -while the quarrel went on. Now she dipped a towel in it and wiped the -mother’s face and hands and poured hot tea out and set food ready. - -Then little by little the mother let herself be calmed and she wept -more silently and sighed a while and drank a little tea and supped her -food and at last she looked about and said, “Where is my little son?” - -The young man came forward then and she saw how deathly pale he was and -weary and all his merry looks gone for the time, and she pressed him -down beside her on the bench and held his hand and urged him to eat and -rest himself and she said, “Sleep here beside me tonight, my little -son, and on the pallet where your sister used to lie. I cannot have it -empty this night, my son.” And so the lad did and he slept heavily the -moment that he laid himself down. - -But even when the house was quiet the mother could not sleep for long. -She was spent to her core, her body spent with the long ride and all -her heart’s weariness, and the only thing that comforted her was to -hear the lad’s deep breathing as he lay there. And she thought of him -then with new love and thought, “I must do more for him. He is the last -I have. I must wed him and we will build a new room on the house. He -shall have a room for himself and his woman, and then when children -come--yes, I must find a good, lusty wife for him so that somehow we -shall have children in the house.” - -And this thought of little children yet to come was the only comfort -she could see in her whole life ahead of her. - - * * * * * - -But doubtless even this comfort might not have lasted except that her -old flux laid hold on her again and made her weak as death, too weak to -mourn. She lay there on her bed for many days, purged body and heart, -and all her sorrow and her comfort too in abeyance because she was not -strong enough to mourn or hope. Many there were who came to exhort her, -her neighbors and her cousin’s wife and they said, “Goodwife, after all -the child was blind,” and they said, “Goodwife, what heaven has made -for us we cannot change and it is useless to mourn for anything in this -life.” And they said, “Remember your good sons,” and one day when the -cousin’s wife said this the mother answered faintly, “Yes, but my elder -son’s wife she does not bear, and my younger son he will not wed.” And -the cousin’s wife answered heartily, “Give the elder son’s wife a year -or two, cousin, for sometimes when seven years are passed barren, a -woman will come to her true nature and bear a harvest of good children, -for I have seen it so, and as for the lad’s saying he will not wed, -why then he has a love somewhere, and we must find out who she is, and -if she is fit for him to wed or not. Yes, truly has he found a love, -as young folks will these days, for never was there a man in all the -world, I swear, who would not wed!” - -But the mother whispered, “Bend down your ear, sister, and put it -against my lips,” and when the cousin’s wife had done this the mother -whispered, “Since sorrow follows me and everything goes wrong with -me, I fear sometimes it is that old sin of mine that the gods know -about--perhaps heaven will not give me grandsons!” And when she thought -of this she closed her eyes and two great tears came out from under her -closed lids. She thought of all her sins, not only the one the cousin’s -wife knew of, but all the many times she had said she was widow and the -letters that she wrote and all the lies. Not that she held the lies -pure sin, since all must lie a little now and then for honor’s sake, -but here the sin was, that she had lied and said her man was dead. -Almost was it now when she thought of it as if she had put her hand -forth and brought his death on him, and she had used this lie of death -to hope another man would have her. So all these sins of hers, so old -she could forget them many days together when she was well, came back -fresh and now when she was weak and sorrowful, the heavier because she -could not tell them all but must carry them in herself, and heaviest -because she was a woman held in good repute among her fellows. - -She grew so low in mind that nothing cheered her much except to have -her younger son about her. Yes, although the elder son’s wife tended -her most carefully and brought her food ready and hot when she would -have it and even walked a mile or two to another village to fetch a -certain sort of dried curd they made there from beans, and although -the mother leaned on her in every sort of way and called to her if she -would so much as turn herself in her bed, yet the son’s wife was no -comfort to her, and often when she did her most careful best the mother -would scold her that her hands were cold or her face so yellow and -stare at her in some half hostile, childish way. But still the older -woman never blamed the son’s wife any more that she was childless. No, -she said no more of that, believing somehow dimly that her own sins -might be the cause. - -But she rose from her bed at last, and when the autumn was well gone -the sharpness of her pain had ebbed with it and she was dreary all day -long but not frantic, and she could think of her maid, but the edge of -pain was gone. At last she even said to her own heart, “Aye, perhaps -even what they say is true, perhaps it is better that my maid is dead. -There are so many things worse than death.” - -And she held fast to this one thought. - -And all the hamlet helped her. No one ever spoke of the maid again -before her, nor doubtless anywhere, since there is nothing to be -remembered in a blind maid and there are many like her everywhere. -First they did not speak of her where the mother was, to spare the -mother pain, and then they did not speak because there was naught new -to tell of it, and because other news came of other things and people, -and the maid’s little life was ended. - -For a while the gossip went carefully where the mother was and took -thought not to be alone with her, but when she saw how feeble the -mother was when she rose up from her bed, she grew cheerful then and -called out greeting as she ever had. - -And the mother let the past be silent, except sometimes in her own -heart. - - - - -XVIII - - -Then did it seem as though the mother’s heart might have some comfort, -for in the springtime of that year the younger son came home and he -said, “I am come home to stay a while, mother, how long I do not know, -but at least until I am bid to go again.” - -But when she rejoiced he made little answer and scarcely seemed -himself. He was so quiet, never singing or playing his capers or -talking in any reckless way as he was used to do, that the mother’s -heart wondered if he might be ill or troubled with some secret thing. -But when she spoke this fear to the cousin’s wife that one said, -mildly, “Well, it may be he is passing out of his childhood. How many -are his years, now? The same I think as my fifth child, and she is -twenty now and nearly twenty-one and wed four years. Yes, twenty-one -is out of childhood, and men should not caper then as once they did, -although I remember that man of yours could caper even to that last day -I saw him.” - -“Aye,” said the mother, sighing. Very dim in her now was the memory -of the man, and mingled somehow with this younger son of hers, and -sometimes when she remembered she could not think how her man had -looked alone, because the son’s face rose there in his stead. - -But at the end of nine days the younger son went as quickly as he came -and almost secretly, though how he had his message he must go none -knew. But go he did, putting his few garments in a little leathern box -he had. His mother grieved to see him go and cried, “I thought you were -come to stay, my son,” but the son replied, “Oh, I shall be back again, -my mother,” and he seemed secretly gay again somehow, and eager to be -gone. - -Thereafter was he always gay. He came and went without warning. He -would come in perhaps one day, his roll of clothing under his arm and -there he was. And for a day or two he would idle about the little -hamlet and sit in the teashop and make great talk of how ill the times -were and how uneven justice was and how some great day all this would -be made better, and men listened staring at each other, not knowing -what to make of it, and the innkeeper scratched his greasy head and -cried, “I do swear it sounds like robbers’ talk to me, neighbors!” But -for the mother’s sake and for the good elder son’s sake they let him -be, thinking him but childish still and to be wiser when he was wed and -had a man’s life. - -Yet when he came home this younger son still sat idle, or else he made -as if to help his brother at some light task, although when he did this -the brother said scornfully always, “I thank you, brother, but I am -used to doing work without you.” - -Then the youth looked at him in his impudent way, for he grew a very -impudent eye these last days, and he would not quarrel but he laughed -coolly and he said, and spat in the dust while he said it, “As you -will, my elder brother,” and he was so cool his elder brother well-nigh -burst with hatred of him and gladly would have told him to stay away -forever except that a man may not tell his brother this and still be -righteous in his neighbors’ eyes. - -But the mother saw no fault in him at all. Even when he talked his big -talk with her and said against his elder brother, “I swear these little -landowners that must even rent before they can live, these little men, -they are so small and proud that they deserve what shall befall them -one day when all the land is made common and no one may have it for his -own.” - -The mother understood no word of this except the first and she said -plaintively, “Aye, I do think, too, your brother is over proud -sometimes, and his wife barren, too.” - -For everything this younger son said seemed wise to the mother, now she -clung to him so fast. To her when he came home it made a festival, and -she would have made each day that he was there a holiday if she could -have done it and would have killed a fowl for him and made better food -than usual. But this she could not do. The fowls were her elder son’s -now, and she could not do better than to steal an egg or two from some -nest she found and keep them for her younger son, and when he came pour -them into boiling water secretly for him to sup and add to the dish a -little sugar that she had saved somehow. - -It came to be that whenever any little dainty fell to her or if she -went into a house in the hamlet for a visit with a neighbor, since she -was so idle now in her age and nothing she must do, and if someone gave -her a peach or a dried persimmon or a little cake or some such thing -for kindness, she saved it for her younger son. Much time she spent -in watching these small bits to see they did not mold, and she kept -them as long as she could, and when he put off coming home and she was -forced to eat them lest they spoil she felt it no pleasure and scarcely -could she enjoy the dainty, although she loved food, too. Often would -she open the drawer she kept them in and turn the little store over -with her fingers and think to herself, “He does not come. He is not -here. If I had a little grandson I could give them to him when my son -does not come. I have no one, if my son does not come.” - -And many hours of each day she sat and looked down the road to catch a -glimpse of him as he came and when she saw the glint of a man’s robe -she would run forward as best she could and when she saw it was her -son come home she took his warm smooth hand in her old dry one and -she pulled him into her own room and poured out for him the tea the -careful son’s wife kept there for her and then with pleasure would -she bring out the little store she had for him. And she sat down and -watched him lovingly while he picked about among the bits and chose the -best. Sometimes he turned his dainty nose aside and said, “That cake is -mildewed, mother,” or he said, “I never liked a rice flour cake so dry.” - -Then she would answer sorrowfully, “Is it too dry, my son? Well, and I -thought you would still like it maybe,” and when he would not have it -she ate it up herself to keep from wasting it, grieving that it was not -good enough for him. - -Then when he had eaten what he wished she sat to hear what he would -say. Never would he answer all her questions freely as she wished he -would and when she pressed him closely he seemed to be in haste to go -away, and when she saw this was so, she learned to ask him nothing and -he learned, too, to put her off. For as she grew older she forgot more -easily and was put off more easily too, and to put her off he would -tell her of some wonder he had seen, a juggler who would let a snake -crawl down his throat and pull it up again by the tail, or a woman who -had borne a two-headed child that she showed for a penny to those who -wished to see it, or some such strange sight as may be seen in any town. - -And the old mother was diverted by his talk and cried when he was gone, -and she could not keep from telling of these wonders to the son and -his wife. Once when she did so the elder son was bent over an earthen -bowl of water, washing off his face after labor in the fields, and he -looked up, his face wet, and said most bitterly, “Aye, he does not feed -you nor do aught else for you but throw a bit of a coin to you as to a -beggar. He comes here and eats and never puts his hand to hoe or plough -and tells these tales and he is more to you than--” and he bent his -face again and made a noise about his washing and would not listen to -what his mother had to say in answer. - -But this was all she knew of her younger son. She knew his lithe and -pretty body, and she knew the pale gold of his skin, the hue a city man -is and different from the dark and ruddy brown of country folk, and she -knew how the nails grew long upon his two little fingers, and she knew -his teeth were white and his black hair oiled and shining, and she knew -how he let his hair grow long about his ears and how he tossed his head -to keep his eyes clear of the glossy hair. - -Yes, and she knew and loved his ready smile and his bold eyes and she -loved his carelessness with silver and how he would reach into his -girdle and give her what he had or if he had none ask of her what she -had, and more than to have him give to her she loved to take what she -had and press it on him. All he gave her she saved to give it back -again when he might want it. It was the best use she knew for her small -store. - - - - -XIX - - -But one day he did not come when he said he would. And how did she -know he would surely come? Because but three days before he had come -secretly and by night, walking across the field paths and not through -the village, and he scratched lightly on her door, so she was half -afraid to open it, thinking it might be robbers. Even as she was about -to call out she heard his voice low and quick and luckily the fowls -stirred by her bed where they roosted and hid it from the hearing of -the elder son and his wife. - -She rose then as fast as she could, fumbling her clothes and feeling -for the candle, and when she opened the door softly, for she knew -it must be for a secret thing he came at such an hour and in such a -way, there he was with two other young men, all dressed in the same -way he went dressed these days, in black. They had a great bundle of -something tied up in paper and rope and when she opened the door with -the light in her hand, her son blew the light out for there was a faint -moon, enough to see by, and when she cried out but still softly in her -pleasure to see him, he said in a whisper, “Mother, there is something -of my own I must put under your bed among the winter garments there. -Say nothing of it, for I do not want anyone to know it is there. I will -come and fetch it again.” - -Her heart misgave her somehow when she heard this and she opened her -eyes and said soberly, holding her voice low as his, “Son, it is not -an ill thing, I hope--I hope you have not taken something that is not -yours.” - -But he answered hastily, “No, no, mother, nothing robbed, I swear. It -is some sheepskins I had the chance to buy cheap, but my brother will -blame me for them for he blames me for everything, and I have nowhere -to put them. I bought them very cheap and you shall have one next -winter, mother, for a coat--we will all wear good clothes next winter!” - -She was mightily pleased then and trusted him when he said they were -not robbed and it was a joy to her to share a little secret with this -son of hers and she said hastily, “Oh, aye, trust me, son! There be -many things in this room that my son and son’s wife do not know.” - -Then the two men brought the bundle in and they pushed it silently -under the bed, and the fowls cackled and stared and the buffalo woke -and began to chew its cud. - -But the son would not stay at all, and when the mother saw his haste -she wondered but she said, “Be sure I will keep them safe, my son, but -ought they not to be aired and sunned against the moth?” - -To this he answered carelessly, “It is but for a day or two, for we -are moving to a larger place and then I shall have a room of my own and -plenty.” - -When she heard this talk of much room, there was that thought in her -mind she had always of his marriage, and she drew him aside somewhat -from the other two and looked at him beseechingly. It was the one thing -about him that did not please her, that he was not willing for her to -wed him, because she well knew what hot blood was and there was sign in -this son of her own heat when she was young, and she knew he must sate -it somehow and she grudged the waste. Better if he were wed to some -clean maid and she could have her grandsons. Now even in the haste of -the moment when he was eager to be gone, and the other two waiting in -the shadows by the door, even now she laid her hand on his hand and she -said coaxingly, her voice still whispering, “But, son, if you have so -much room, then why not let me find a maid? I will find the best pretty -maid I can--or if you know one, then tell me and let me ask my cousin’s -wife to be the one to make the match. I would not force you, son, if it -be the one you like is one that I would like too.” - -But the young man shook his long locks from his eyes and looked toward -the door, and tried to shift her hand away. But she held him fast and -coaxed again, “Why should your good heats be spent on wild weeds here -and there, my son, and give me no good grandsons? Your brother’s wife -is so cold I think there will never be children on my knees unless -you put them there. Aye, you are like your own father, and well I know -what he was. Plant your seeds in your own land, my son, and reap the -harvests for your own house!” - -But the young man laughed silently and tossed his hair back again from -those glittering eyes of his and said half wondering, “Old women like -you, mother, think of nothing but weddings and births of children, and -we--we young ones nowadays have cast away all that.... In three days, -mother!” - -He pulled himself away then and was gone, walking with the other two -across the dimly lighted fields. - -But three days passed and he did not come. And three more came and went -and yet three more, and the mother grew afraid and wondered if some -ill had come upon her son. But now in this last year she had not gone -easily to the town and so she waited, peevish with all who came near -her, not daring to tell what her fears were, and not daring either -to leave her room far lest her son’s careful wife chance to draw the -curtains aside and see the bundle under her bed. - -One night as she lay sleepless with her wondering she rose and lit -the candle and stooped and peered under the bed, holding the parted -curtains with one hand. There the thing was, wrapped in thick paper, -shaped large and square and tied fast with hempen rope. She pressed -it and felt of it and there was something hard within, not sheepskin -surely. - -“It should be taken out to sun, if it is sheepskin,” she muttered, -sore at the thought of waste if the moth should creep in and gnaw good -skins. But she did not dare to open it and so she let it be. And still -her son did not come. - -So passed the days until a month was gone and she was near beside -herself and would have been completely so, except that something came -to wean her mind somewhat from her fears. It was the last thing she -dreamed of nowadays and it was that her son’s wife conceived. - -Yes, after all these cool years the woman came to herself and did her -duty. The elder son went to his mother importantly one day as she sat -in the doorway and said, his lean face all wrinkled with his smiles, -“Mother, you shall have a grandson.” - -She came out of the heavy muse in which she spent her days now and -stared at him out of eyes grown a little filmy and said peevishly, -“You speak like a fool. Your wife is cold as any stone and as barren -and where my little son is I do not know and he scatters his good seed -anywhere and will not wed and save it.” - -Then the elder son coughed and said plainly, “Your son’s wife has -conceived.” - -At first the mother would not believe it. She looked at this elder son -of hers and then she shouted, pulling at her staff to raise herself -upon her feet, “She has not--I never will believe it!” - -But she saw by his face that it was true and she rose and went as -fast as she could and found her son’s wife who was chopping leeks in -the kitchen and she peered at the young woman and she cried, “Have you -something in you then at last?” - -The wife nodded and went on with her work, her pale face spotted with -dull red, and then the mother knew it to be true. She said, “How long -have you known?” - -“Two moons and more,” the young wife answered. - -Then the old mother fell into a rage to think she was not told and she -cried, striking her staff against the earthen floor, “Why have you said -no word to me, who have sat all these years panting and pining and -thirsting for such news? Two moons--was ever so cold a soul as you and -would not any other woman have told the thing the first day that she -knew it!” - -Then the young woman stayed her knife and she said in her careful way, -“I did not lest I might be wrong and grieve you worse than if I never -gave you hope.” - -But this the mother would not grant and she spat and said, “Well and -with all the children I have had could not I have told you whether you -were right or wrong? No, you think I am a child and foolish with my -age. I know what you think--yes, you show it with every step you make.” - -But the young woman answered nothing. She pressed her lips together, -those full pale lips, and poured a bowl of tea from an earthen pot that -stood there on the table and she led the mother to her usual place -against the wall. - -But the mother could not sit and hold such news as this. No, she must -go and tell her cousin and her cousin’s wife and there they sat at -home, for nowadays the sons did the work, the three who stayed upon -the land, the others having gone elsewhere to earn their food, and the -cousin still did what he could and he was always busy at some small -task or other. But even he could not work as he once had, and as for -his wife, she slept peacefully all day long except when she woke to -heed some grandchild’s cry. - -And now the mother went across the way and woke her ruthlessly and -shouted at her as she slept, “You shall not be the only grandmother, I -swear! A few months and I am to have a grandson too!” - -The cousin’s wife came to herself then slowly, smiling and licking -her lips that were grown dry with sleeping, and she opened her little -placid eyes and said, “Is it so, cousin, and is your little son to be -wed?” - -The mother’s heart sank a little, and she said, “No, not that,” and -then the cousin looked up from where he sat, a little weazened man -upon a low bamboo stool, and he sat there twisting ropes of straw for -silkworms to spin cocoons upon, since it was the season when they spin, -and he said in his spare dry way, “Your son’s wife, then, cousin?” - -“Aye,” the mother said heartily, her pleasure back again, and she sat -down to pour it out, but she would not seem too pleased either, and -she hid her pleasure with complaints and said, “Time, too, and I have -waited these eight years and if I had been rich I would have fetched -another woman for him, but I thought my younger son should have his -chance before I gave his brother two, and marriage costs so much these -days even for a second woman, if she be decent and not from some evil -place. A very slow woman always that son’s wife of mine, and full of -some temper not like mine--cold as any serpent’s temper it is.” - -“But not evil, goodwife,” said the cousin justly. “She has done well -and carefully always. You have the ducks and drakes now that you did -not used to have upon the pond, and she mated that old buffalo you had -and got this young one, and your fowls are twice as many as you had -and you must have ten or twelve by now, besides all the many ones sold -every year.” - -“No, not evil,” said the mother grudgingly, “but I wish she could have -used heats other than the heats of beasts and fowls.” - -Then the cousin’s wife spoke kindly but always full of sleep these -days, and she said, yawning as she spoke, “Aye, she is different from -you, cousin, to be sure--a full hot woman have you always been and one -to do so much, and still hearty. Why, when you walk about, if you have -not your flux, I do wonder how you walk so quick. I do marvel, for if -I must walk from bench to table and from table to bed, it is as much as -I can do these days.” - -And the cousin said admiringly, “Aye, and I cannot eat half what I used -to do, but I see you sitting there and shouting for your bowl to be -filled again and then again.” - -And the mother said modestly but pleased at all this praise, “Oh, aye, -I eat as well as ever. Three bowls and often four I eat, and I can eat -anything not too hard since my front teeth fell away, and I am very -sound at such times as I have not got my flux.” - -“A very sound old soul,” murmured the cousin’s wife, and then she slept -a little and woke again and saw the mother there and smiled her wide -sleepy smile and said, “A grandson, did you say? Aye, we have seven now -of grandsons alone--and none too many--” and slept again peacefully. - - * * * * * - -So did the great news fill the days that had been empty because the -younger son did not come, and this new joy took the edge from the -mother’s waiting and she thought he must come some time or other and -let it rest at that. - -But it was not all joy either, and like every joy she ever had, the -mother thought, there was always something wrong in it to make it go -amiss if so it could. Here the thing was. She feared lest the child be -born a girl and when she thought of this she muttered, “Yes, and it -would be like my ever evil destiny if it were born a girl.” - -And in her anxiety she would have liked to go and ask that potent -little goddess that she knew and make a bribe to her of a new robe of -red or new shoes or some such thing if she would make the child a boy. -But she did not dare to go lest she recall to the goddess’ mind that -old sin of hers, and she feared the goddess lest her old sin was not -yet atoned for, even with the sorrow that she had, and that if the -goddess saw her and heard her speak of grandsons, she might remember -and reach out and smite the little one in the womb. She thought to -herself, most miserably, “Better if I do not go and show myself at all. -If I stay away and do not tell her that the child is coming, she may -forget me this long time I have not been to any gods, and it will be -but the birth of another mortal and not my grandson, and I must chance -it is a boy.” - -And then she grew uneasy and full of gloom and thought to herself that -if the child were joy yet was it a new gate for sorrow to enter by, -too, and so is every child, and when she thought of this and how the -child might be born dead or shapen wrong or dull or blind or a girl or -any of these things, she hated gods and goddesses who have such powers -to mar a mortal, and she muttered, “Have I not been more than punished -for any little sin I did? Who could have thought the gods would know -what I did that day? But doubtless that old god in the shrine smelled -the sin about him and told the goddess somehow even though I covered up -his eyes. Well, I will stay away from gods, so sinful an old soul as I -be, for even if I would I do not know how to atone more for what I did -than I have atoned. I swear if they measured up the joy and sorrow I -have had in my whole life the sorrow would sink the scales like stone, -and the joy be nothing more than thistledown, such poor joys as I have -had. I did not bear the child and I have seen my blind maid die, still -blind. Does not sorrow atone? Aye, I have been very full of sorrows all -my life long, always poor too, with all my sorrows. But gods know no -justice.” - -So, she thought gloomily, she had two sorrows to bear now: fear lest -her grandson be not whole and sound or else a girl, and waiting for -this younger son who would not come. Sometimes she thought her whole -life was only made of waiting now. So had she waited for her man to -come who never came, and now her son and grandsons. Such was her life -and poor stuff it was, she thought. - -Yet she must hope and whenever anyone went into town she always asked -him when he came back again, “Saw you my little son today anywhere?” -And she would go about the hamlet and to this house and that and say, -“Who went to town today?” And when one said he had, she asked again, -“Saw you my little son today, goodman?” - -All through the hamlet in those days of waiting the men and women grew -used to this question and when they looked up and saw her leaning on -the staff her son had cut for her from a branch of their own trees and -heard her old quavering voice ask, “Neighbor, saw you my little son -today?” they would answer kindly enough, “No, no, good mother, and how -could we see him in the common market-place where we go and he such as -he is, and one you say who lives by books?” - -Then she would turn away dashed of her hope again and she let her voice -sink and mutter, “I do not know--well and I think it is he has to do -with books somewhere,” and they would laugh and say to humor her, “If -some day we pass a place where books are sold we will look in and see -if he is there behind the counter.” - -So she must go home to wait and wonder if the moths had eaten up the -sheepskins. - - * * * * * - -But one day after many moons there came news. The mother sat by the -door as ever she did now, her long pipe in her fingers, for she had -only just eaten her morning meal. She sat and marked how sharply the -morning sun rose over the rounded hills and waited for it hoping for -its heat, for these autumn mornings were chill. Then came suddenly -across the threshold a son of her cousin’s, the eldest son, and he went -to her own elder son who stood binding the thong of his sandal that had -broken as he put it on, and he said something in a low voice. - -She wondered even then for she had seen this man start for the town -that morning when she rose at dawn, since she could not lie abed -easily if she were well, being used to dawn rising all her life, and -she saw him start to town with loads of new-cut grass. Here he was back -so soon, and she was about to call out and ask him if he had sold his -grass so quick when she saw her elder son look up from the thong and -cry aghast, “My brother?” - -Yes, the old mother’s sharp ears heard it, for she was not deaf at all -and she called out quickly, “What of my little son?” - -But the two men talked on earnestly and very gravely and with anxious -looks into each other’s faces and at last the mother could not bear -it and she rose and hobbled to them and she struck her staff upon the -beaten earth and cried out, “Tell me of my son!” - -But the cousin’s son went away without a word and the elder son said, -halting, “Mother, there is something wrong. I do not know--but, mother, -I must go to town and see and tell you then--” - -But the mother would not let him go. She laid hold on him and cried out -the more, “You shall not go until you tell me!” - -And at the sound of such a voice the son’s wife came and stood and -listened and said, “Tell her, else she will be ill with anger.” - -So the son said slowly, “My cousin said--he said he saw my brother this -morning among many others, and his hands were tied behind him with -hempen ropes and his clothes were rags and he was marching past the -market-place where my cousin had taken the grass to sell, and there -was a long line of some twenty or thirty, and when my brother saw him -he turned his eyes away--but my cousin asked and the guards who walked -along said they were communists sent to gaol to be killed tomorrow.” - -Then did the three stare at each other, and as they stared the old -mother’s jaw began to tremble and she looked from this face to the -other and said, “I have heard that word, but I do not know what it is.” - -And the son said slowly, “So I asked my cousin and he asked the guard -and the guard laughed and he said it was a new sort of robber they had -nowadays.” - -Then the mother thought of that bundle hid so long beneath her bed and -she began to wail aloud and threw her coat over her head and sobbed and -said, “I might have known that night--oh, that bundle underneath my bed -is what he robbed!” - -But the son and son’s wife laid hold on her at this and looked about -and hurried her between them into the house and said, “What do you -mean, our mother?” - -And the son’s wife lifted up the curtain and looked at the man and he -came and the old mother pointed to the bundle there and sobbed, “I do -not know what is in it--but he brought it here one night--and bade me -be secret for a day or two--and still he is not come--and never came--” - -Then the man rose and went and shut the door softly and barred it and -the woman hung a garment over the window and together they drew that -bundle forth and untied the ropes. - -“Sheepskins, he said it was,” the mother murmured, staring at it. - -But the two said nothing and believed nothing that she said. It might -be anything and half they expected it was gold when they felt how heavy -and how hard it was. - -But when they opened it, it was only books. Many, many books were -there, all small and blackly printed, and many sheets of paper, some -pictured with the strangest sights of blood and death and giants -beating little men or hewing them with knives. And when they saw these -books, the three gaped at each other, all at a loss to know what this -could mean and why any man should steal and hide mere paper marked with -ink. - -But however much they stared they could not know the meaning. None -could read a word, nor scarcely know the meaning of the pictures except -that they were of bloody things, men stabbed and dying, and men severed -in pieces and all such bloody hateful things as happen only where -robbers are. - -Then were the three in terror, the mother for her son and the other -two for themselves lest any should know that these were there. The man -said, “Tie them up again and let them be till night and then we will -take them to the kitchen and burn them all.” - -But the woman was more careful and she said, “No, we cannot burn them -all at once or else others will see the mighty smoke and wonder what we -do. I must burn them bit by bit and day by day as though I burned the -grass to cook our food.” - -But the old mother did not heed this. She only knew now that her son -had fallen in evil hands and she said to her elder son, “Oh, son, what -will you do for your little brother--how will you find him?” - -“I know where he is,” the man said slowly and unwillingly. “My cousin -said they took them to a certain gaol near the south gate where the -beheading ground is.” - -And then he cried out at his mother’s sudden ghastly look and he called -to his wife and they lifted the old woman and laid her on the bed and -there she lay and gasped, her face the hue of clay with terror for -her son, and she whispered gasping, “Oh, son, will you not go--your -brother--” - -And the elder son laid aside his fears for himself then slowly and he -said, in pity for his mother, “Oh, aye, mother, I go--I go--” - -He changed his clothes then and put shoes on his feet and to the mother -the time went so slow she could not bear it. When at last he was ready -she called him to her and pulled his head down and whispered in his -ear, “Son, do not spare money. If he be truly in the gaol, there must -be money spent to get him out. But money can do it, son. Whoever heard -of any gaol that would not let a man free for money? Son, I have a -little--in a hole here--I only kept it for him--use it all--use all we -have--” - -The man’s face did not change and he looked at his wife and she looked -at him and he said, “I will spare all I can, my mother, for your sake.” - -But she cried, “What does it matter for me?--I am old and ready to die. -It is for his sake.” - -But the man was gone, and he went to fetch his cousin who had seen the -sight and the two went toward the town. - -What could the mother do then except to wait again? Yet this was the -bitterest waiting of her life. She could not lie upon her bed and yet -she was faint if she rose. At last the son’s wife grew frightened -to see how the old woman looked and how she stared and muttered and -clapped her hands against her lean thighs and so she went and fetched -the old cousin and the cousin’s wife, and the pair came over soberly -and the three old people sat together. - -It was true it did comfort the mother somewhat to have the others -there, for these were the two she could speak most to and she wept and -said again and again, “If I have sinned have I not had sorrow enough?” -And she said, “If I have sinned why do I not die myself and let it -be an end of it? Why should this one and that be taken from me, and -doubtless my grandson, too? No, I shall never see my grandson. I know -I never shall, and it will not be I who must die.” And then she grew -angry at such sorrow and cried out in her anger, weeping as she cried, -“But where is any perfect woman and who is without any sin, and why -should I have all the sorrow?” - -Then the cousin’s wife said hastily, for she feared that this old -mother might cry out too much in her pain, “Be sure we all have sins -and if we must be judged by sins then none of us would have children. -Look at my sons and grandsons, and yet I am a wicked old soul, too, and -I never go near a temple and I never have and when a nun used to come -and cry out that I should learn the way to heaven, why then I was too -busy with the babes, and now when I am old and they come and tell me I -must learn the way before it is too late, why then I say I am too old -to learn anything now and must do without a heaven if they will not -have me as I am.” - -So she comforted the distraught mother, and the cousin said in his -turn, “Wait, good cousin, until we hear what the news is. It may be you -need not grieve after all, for he may be set free with the money they -have to free him with, or it may be my son saw wrong and it was not -your son who went past bound.” - -But the cousin’s wife took this care. She bade the young wife go and -see to something or other in her own house, for she would have this -son’s wife out of earshot, lest this poor old woman tell more than she -meant to tell in this hour, and a great pity after keeping silence so -many years. - -So they waited for the two men to return and it was easier waiting -three than one. - -But night drew on before the mother saw them coming. She had dragged -herself from her bed and as the afternoon wore on she went and sat -under the willow tree, her cousin and her cousin’s wife beside her, and -there the old three sat staring down the hamlet street, except when the -cousin’s wife slept her little sleeps that not even sorrow could keep -from her. - -At last when the sun was nearly set the mother saw them coming. She -rose and leaned upon her staff and shaded her eyes against the golden -evening sun and she cried, “It is they!” and hobbled down the street. -So loud had been her cry, so fast her footsteps, that everyone came -out of his house, for in the hamlet they all knew the tale but did not -dare to come openly to the mother’s house, for fear there might be some -judgment come on it because of this younger son and they all be caught -in it. All day then they had gone about their business, eaten through -with curiosity, but fearful too, as country people are when gaols and -governors are talked of. Now they came forth and hung about, but at a -distance, and watched what might befall. The cousin rose too and went -behind the mother, and even the cousin’s wife would fain have come -except now she did not walk unless she must and she thought to herself -that she would hear it but a little later and she was one who believed -the best must happen after all and so she spared herself and sat upon -her bench and waited. - -But the mother ran and laid hold on her son’s arm and cried out, “What -of my little son?” - -But even as she asked the question, even as her old eyes searched the -faces of the two men, she knew that ill was written there. The two men -looked at each other and at last the son said soberly, “He is in gaol, -mother.” The two men looked at each other again and the cousin’s son -scratched his head for a while and looked away and seemed foolish and -as though he did not know what to say, and so the son spoke again, -“Mother, I doubt he can be saved. He and twenty more are set for death -and in the morning.” - -“Death?” the mother shrieked, and again she shrieked, “Death!” - -And she would have fallen if they had not caught her. - -Then the two men led her in to the nearest house and put a seat beneath -her and eased her down and she began to weep and cry as a child does, -her old mouth quivering and her tears running down and she beat her -dried breasts with her clenched hands and cried out, accusing her son, -“Then you did not offer them enough money--I told you I had that little -store--not so little either, forty pieces of silver and the two little -pieces he gave me last--and there they are waiting!” And when she saw -her son stand with hanging head and the sweat bursting out on his lip -and brow she spat at him in her anger and she said, “You shall not -have a penny of it either! If he dies it will not be for you. No, I -will go and throw it in the river first.” - -Then the cousin’s son spoke up in defense and for the sake of peace -and he said, his face wrinkling in such a distressful hour and cause, -“No, aunt, do not blame him. He offered more than twice your store. He -offered a hundred pieces for his brother, and to high and low in that -gaol, as high as he could get he offered bribes. To this one and to -that he showed silver, but they would not even let him see your little -son.” - -“Then he did not offer enough,” the mother shouted. “Whoever heard of -guards in a gaol who are not to be bribed? But I will go and fetch that -money this moment. Yes, I will dig it up and take it, old as I am, and -find my little son and bring him home and he shall never leave me more, -whatever they may say.” - -Again the two men looked at each other and the son’s face begged his -cousin to speak again for him and so the cousin’s son said again, “Good -aunt, they will not even let you see him. They would not let us in -at all, I say; no, although we showed silver, because they said the -governor was hot now against such crime as his. It is some new crime -nowadays, and very heinous.” - -“My son has never done a crime,” the mother cried proudly, and she -lifted up her staff and shook it at the man. “There is an enemy -somewhere here who pays more than we have to keep him in the gaol.” -And she looked around about the crowd that stood there gaping now and -drinking down the news they heard, their eyes staring and their jaws -agape, and she cried at them, “Saw any of you any crime my little son -ever did?” - -This one looked at that and each looked everywhere and said no word -and the mother saw their dubious looks and somehow her heart broke. -She fell into her weeping again and cried at them, “Oh, you hated him -because he was so fair to look upon--better than your black sons, who -are only hinds--aye, you hate anyone who is better than yourselves--” -and she rose and staggered forth and went home weeping most bitterly. - -But when she was come home again and they were alone and none near -except the cousin and the cousin’s wife and their children, the mother -wiped her eyes and said to her elder son more quietly yet in a fever, -too, “But this is letting good time pass. Tell me all, for we may save -him yet. We have the night. What was his true crime? We will take all -we have and save him yet.” - -There passed between the son and son’s wife a look at this, not evil, -but as though forbearance were very near its end in them, and then the -son began, “I do not know what the crime is rightly, but they call him -what I told you, a communist. A new word--I have heard it often, and -when I asked what it was it seemed to be a sort of robber band. I asked -the guard there at the gaol, who stands with a gun across his arm, and -he answered, ‘What is he? Why, one who would even take your land from -you, goodman, for himself, and one who contrives against the state and -so must die with all his fellows.’ Aye, that is his crime.” - -The mother listened hard to this, the candle’s light falling on her -face that glistened with dried tears, and she said astounded, her voice -trembling while she strove to make it firm, “But I do not think it can -be so. I never heard him say a word like this. I never heard of such a -crime. To kill a man, to rob a house, to let a parent starve, these be -crimes. But how can land be robbed? Can he roll it up like cloth and -take it away with him and hide it somewhere?” - -“I do not know, mother,” said the son, his head hanging, his hands -hanging loose between his knees as he sat upon a little stool. He wore -his one robe still, but he had tucked the edge into his girdle, for he -was not used to robes, and now he put it in more firmly and then he -said slowly, “I do not know what else was said, a great deal here and -there in the town we heard, because so many are to be killed tomorrow -and they make a holiday. What else was said, my cousin?” - -Then the cousin’s son scratched his chin and swallowed hard and stared -at the faces round about him in the room and he said, “There was a -great deal said by those town folk, but I dared not ask much for when -I asked more closely what the pother was about the guards at the gaol -turned on me and said, ‘Are you one of them, too? What is it then to -you if they are killed?’ And I dared not say I was the cousin of one -to be killed. But we did find a chief gaoler and we gave him some money -and begged for a private place to speak in and he led us to a corner of -the gaol behind his own house and we told him we were honest country -folk and had a little poor land and rented more, and that there was one -among the doomed to die who was a distant relative, and if we could -save him then we would for honor’s sake, since none of our name had -died under a headsman’s blade before. But only if it did not cost too -much since we were poor. The gaoler took the silver then and asked how -the lad looked and we told him and he said, ‘I think I know the lad you -mean, for he has been very ill at ease in gaol, and I think he would -say all he knows, except there is a maid beside him bold as any I have -ever seen who keeps him brave. Yes, some are hard and bold and do not -care however they may die or when they die. But that lad is afraid. I -doubt he knows what he has done or why he dies, for he looks a simple -country lad they have used for their bidding and made great promises to -him. I believe his crime is that he was found with certain books upon -him that he gave among the people freely, and in the books are evil -things said of overturning all the state and sharing all the money and -the land alike.’” - -Then the mother looked at her elder son and broke out in fresh weeping -and she moaned, “I knew we ought to let him have some land. We might -have rented a little more and given him a share--but no, this elder -son of mine and his wife must hold it all and grudge him everything--” - -Then the elder son opened his mouth to speak, but the old cousin said -quietly, “Do not speak, my son. Let your mother blame you and ease -herself. We all know what you are and what your brother was and how ill -he hated any labor on the land or any labor anywhere.” - -So the son held his peace. At last the cousin’s son said on, “We asked -the gaoler then how much silver it would take to set the lad free, and -the gaoler shook his head and said that if the lad were high of place -and son of some great rich and mighty man then doubtless silver used -could set him free. But being a country lad and poor no man would put -his life in danger for all that we could give, and so doubtless he must -die.” - -At this the mother shrieked, “And shall he die because he is my son and -I am poor? We have that land we own and we will sell it to free him. -Yes, we will sell it this very night,--there are those in this hamlet--” - -But the elder son spoke up at this talk of his land and he said, “And -how then will we live? We can scarcely live even as it is and if we -rent more and at these new and ruinous rates we have now we shall be -beggars. All we own is this small parcel of land and I will not sell -it, mother. No, the land is mine--I will not sell it.” - -And when he said this his wife spoke up, to say the only thing she had -said all the time, for she had sat there quietly listening, her pale -face grave and showing nothing and she said, “There is the son I have -in me to think of now.” - -And the man said heavily, “Aye, it is he I think of.” - -Then was the old mother silent. Yes, she was silent and she wept a -while and thereafter all that night whenever fresh words broke forth -there was but this one answer to them all. - - * * * * * - -When the dim dawn came near, for they had sat the night through, the -mother gathered some strange strength she had and said, “I will go -myself. Once more I will go into the town and wait to see my little son -if he must go out to die.” And they laid their hands upon her arm and -begged her not to go, and the son said earnestly, “Mother, I will go -and fetch him--afterwards--for if you see the sight you yourself will -die.” But she said, “What if I die?” - -She washed her face and combed the bit of gray hair left on her head -and put a clean coat on herself as ever she was used to do when she -went townwards, and she said simply, “Go and fetch my cousin’s ass. You -will let me have it, cousin?” - -“Oh, aye,” the cousin said helplessly and sadly. - -So the son and cousin’s son went and fetched the ass and set the old -mother on its back and they walked to the town beside it, a lantern in -the son’s hand, for dawn was still too faint to walk by. - -Now was the mother weak and quiet and washed by her tears, and she went -almost not knowing what she did, but clinging to the ass’s back. Her -head hung down and she did not look once to see the dawn. She stared -down into the pale dusty road that scarcely showed yet through the -darkness. The men were silent, too, at that grave hour, and so they -went winding with the road to the south and entered in toward the -southern gate that was not opened yet as they came because the day was -still so early. - -But there were many waiting there, for it had been noised about the -countryside that there would be this great beheading and many came to -see it for a show and brought their children. As soon as the gates were -opened they all pressed in, the mother on her ass, and the two men, -and they all turned to that piece of ground near the city wall within -a certain open space. There in the early morning light a great crowd -stood already, thick and pressed and silent with the thought of this -vast spectacle of death. Little children clung hard to their parents in -nameless fear of what they did not know, and babes cried out and were -hushed and the crowd was silent, waiting hungrily, relishing in some -strange way and hating, too, the horror that they craved to see. - -But the mother and the two men did not stay in the crowd. No, the -mother whispered, “Let us go to the door of the gaol and stand there,” -for in her poor heart she still held the hope that somehow when she saw -her son some miracle must happen, some way must come whereby she could -save him. - -So the man turned the ass’s head toward the gaol and there it was, -and beside its gate set in the high wall spiked with glass along the -top they waited. There a guard stretched himself and by him a lantern -burned low, the candle spilling out a heap of melted tallow red as -blood, until a chill wind blew up suddenly with the dawn and blew the -guttering light out. There the three waited in the dusty street, and -the mother came down from the ass and waited, and soon they heard the -sound of footsteps stirring, and then the sound of many footsteps made -on stone and marching and then there was a shout, “Open the gates!” - -The guards sprang up then and stood beside the gates erect, their -weapons stiff and hard across their shoulders, and so the gates swung -open. - -Then did the mother strain her eyes to see her son. There came forth -many persons, youth tied to youth and two by two, their hands bound -with hempen thongs, and each two tied to the two ahead. At first they -seemed all young men, and yet here and there were maids, but hard to -tell as maids, because their long hair was shorn and they wore the -garments that the men did, and there was nothing to show what they were -until one looked close and saw their little breasts and narrow waists, -for their faces were as wild and bold as any young man’s. - -The mother looked at every face, at this one and at that, and suddenly -she saw her own lad. Yes, there he walked, his head down, and he was -tied to a maid, and his hands fast to hers. - -Then the mother rushed forward and fell at his feet and clasped them -and gave one loud cry, “My son!” - -She looked up into his face, the palest face, his lips white and -earthen and the eyes dull. When he saw his mother he turned paler still -and would have fallen had he not been bound to the maid. For this maid -pulled at him and would not let him fall, nor would she let him stay, -and when she saw the old white-haired woman at his feet she laughed -aloud, the boldest, mirthless laugh and she cried out high and shrill, -“Comrade, remember now you have no mother and no father, nor any dear -to you except our common cause!” And she pulled him on his way. - -Then a guard ran out and picked the mother up and threw her to one side -upon the road and there she lay in the dust. Then the crowd marched on -and out of sight and to that southern gate, and suddenly a wild song -burst from them and they went singing to their death. - -At last the two men came and would have lifted up the mother, but she -would not let them. She lay there in the dust a while, moaning and -listening in a daze to that strange song, yet knowing nothing, only -moaning on. - -And yet she could not moan long either, for a guard came from the gaol -gate and prodded her most rudely with his gun and roared at her, “Off -with you, old hag--” and the two men grew afraid and forced the mother -to her feet and set her on the ass again and turned homeward slowly. -But before they reached the southern gate they paused a while beside a -wall and waited. - -They waited until they heard a great roar go up, and then the two men -looked at each other and at the old mother. But if she heard it or -knew what it was, she made no sign. She sat drooping on the beast, and -staring into the dust beneath its feet. - -Then they went on, having heard the cry, and they met the crowd -scattering and shouting this and that. The men said nothing nor did the -old mother seem to hear, but some cried out, “A very merry death they -died, too, and full of courage! Did you see that young bold maid and -how she was singing to the end and when her head rolled off I swear she -sang on a second, did she not?” - -And some said, “Saw you that lad whose red blood spurted out so far it -poured upon the headsman’s foot and made him curse?” - -And some were laughing and their faces red and some were pale, and as -the two men and the mother passed into the city gate, there was a young -man there whose face was white as clay and he turned aside and leaned -against the wall and vomited. - -But if she saw or heard these things the mother said no word. No, she -knew the lad was dead now; dead, and no use silver or anything; no use -reproach, even if she could reprove. She longed but for one place and -it was to get to her home and search out that old grave and weep there. -It came across her heart most bitterly that not even had she any grave -of her own dead to weep upon as other women had, and she must go and -weep on some old unknown grave to ease her heart. But even this pang -passed and she only longed to weep and ease herself. - - * * * * * - -When she was before their door again she came down from the ass and she -said pleading to her elder son, “Take me out behind the hamlet--I must -weep a while.” - -The cousin’s wife was there and heard it and she said kindly, shaking -her old head and wiping her eyes on her sleeves, “Aye, let the poor -soul weep a while--it is the kindest thing--” - -And so in silence the son led his mother to the grave and made a smooth -place in the grass for her to sit upon and pulled some other grass and -made it soft for her. She sat down then and leaned her head upon the -grave and looked at him haggardly and said, “Go away and leave me for -a while and let me weep.” And when he hesitated she said again most -passionately, “Leave me, for if I do not weep then I must die!” - -So he went away saying, “I will come soon to fetch you, mother,” for he -was loath to leave her there alone. - -Then did the mother sit and watch the idle day grow bright. She watched -the sun come fresh and golden over all the land as though no one had -died that day. The fields were ripe with late harvest and the grain -was full and yellow in the leaf and the yellow sun poured over all -the fields. And all the time the mother sat and waited for her sorrow -to rise to tears in her and ease her broken heart. She thought of all -her life and all her dead and how little there had been of any good to -lay hold on in her years, and so her sorrow rose. She let it rise, not -angry any more, nor struggling, but letting sorrow come now as it would -and she took her measure full of it. She let herself be crushed to the -very earth and felt her sorrow fill her, accepting it. And turning her -face to the sky she cried in agony, “Is this atonement now? Am I not -punished well?” - -And then her tears came gushing and she laid her old head upon the -grave and bent her face into the weeds and so she wept. - -On and on she wept through that bright morning. She remembered every -little sorrow and every great one and how her man had quarreled and -gone and how there was no little maid to come and call her home from -weeping now and how her lad looked tied to that wild maid and so she -wept for all her life that day. - - * * * * * - -But even as she wept her son came running. Yes, he came running over -the sun-strewn land and as he ran he beckoned with his arm and shouted -something to her but she could not hear it quickly out of all her maze -of sorrow. She lifted up her face to hear and then she heard him say, -“Mother--mother--” and then she heard him cry, “My son is come--your -grandson, mother!” - -Yes, she heard that cry of his as clear as any call she ever heard her -whole life long. Her tears ceased without her knowing it. She rose and -staggered and then went to meet him, crying, “When--when--” - -“But now,” he shouted laughing. “This very moment born--a son--I never -saw a bigger babe and roaring like a lad born a year or two, I swear!” - -She laid her hand upon his arm and began to laugh a little, half -weeping, too. And leaning on him she hurried her old feet and forgot -herself. - -Thus the two went to the house and into that room where the new mother -lay upon her bed. The room was full of women from the hamlet who had -come to hear the news and even that old gossip, the oldest woman of -them all now, and very deaf and bent nigh double with her years, she -must come too and when she saw the old mother she cackled out, “A lucky -woman you are, goodwife--I thought the end of your luck was come, but -here it is born again, son’s son, I swear, and here be I with nothing -but my old carcass for my pains--” - -But the old mother said not one word and she saw no one. She went into -the room and to the bed and looked down. There the child lay, a boy, -and roaring as his father said he did, his mouth wide open, as fair -and stout a babe as any she had ever seen. She bent and seized him in -her arms and held him and felt him hot and strong against her with new -life. - -She looked at him from head to foot and laughed and looked again, and -at last she searched about the room for the cousin’s wife and there the -woman was, a little grandchild or two clinging to her, who had come to -see the sight. Then when she found the face she sought the old mother -held the child for the other one to see and forgetting all the roomful -she cried aloud, laughing as she cried, her eyes all swelled with her -past weeping, “See, cousin! I doubt I was so full of sin as once I -thought I was, cousin--you see my grandson!” - - - - - THE - JOHN DAY - COMPANY - INC. - -[Illustration] - - - - -TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: - - - Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. - - Archaic or variant spelling has been retained. - - The cover image for this eBook was created by the transcriber and is - entered into the public domain. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MOTHER *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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