The mother

by Pearl S. Buck

At first the mother would not believe it. She looked at this elder son of hers and then she shouted, pulling at her staff to raise herself upon her feet, “She has not—I never will believe it!”

But she saw by his face that it was true and she rose and went as fast as she could and found her son’s wife who was chopping leeks in the kitchen and she peered at the young woman and she cried, “Have you something in you then at last?”

The wife nodded and went on with her work, her pale face spotted with dull red, and then the mother knew it to be true. She said, “How long have you known?”

“Two moons and more,” the young wife answered.

Then the old mother fell into a rage to think she was not told and she cried, striking her staff against the earthen floor, “Why have you said no word to me, who have sat all these years panting and pining and thirsting for such news? Two moons—was ever so cold a soul as you and would not any other woman have told the thing the first day that she knew it!”

Then the young woman stayed her knife and she said in her careful way, “I did not lest I might be wrong and grieve you worse than if I never gave you hope.”

But this the mother would not grant and she spat and said, “Well and with all the children I have had could not I have told you whether you were right or wrong? No, you think I am a child and foolish with my age. I know what you think—yes, you show it with every step you make.”

But the young woman answered nothing. She pressed her lips together, those full pale lips, and poured a bowl of tea from an earthen pot that stood there on the table and she led the mother to her usual place against the wall.

But the mother could not sit and hold such news as this. No, she must go and tell her cousin and her cousin’s wife and there they sat at home, for nowadays the sons did the work, the three who stayed upon the land, the others having gone elsewhere to earn their food, and the cousin still did what he could and he was always busy at some small task or other. But even he could not work as he once had, and as for his wife, she slept peacefully all day long except when she woke to heed some grandchild’s cry.

And now the mother went across the way and woke her ruthlessly and shouted at her as she slept, “You shall not be the only grandmother, I swear! A few months and I am to have a grandson too!”