The mother

by Pearl S. Buck

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!”