The mother

by Pearl S. Buck

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.”