The mother

by Pearl S. Buck

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.”