The mother

by Pearl S. Buck

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.”