The mother

by Pearl S. Buck

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.’”