Is there one day different from another under heaven for a mother? In
the morning the mother woke and rose before dawn, and while the others
still slept she opened the door and let out the fowls and the pig and
led the water buffalo into the dooryard, and she swept up what filth
they had dropped in the night and put it upon the pile at a corner of
the dooryard. While the others still lay she went into the kitchen and
lit the fire and made water hot for the man and for the old woman to
drink when they woke, and some she poured into a wooden basin to cool a
little, so that she might wash the girl’s eyes.
Every morning the girl’s eyes were sealed fast shut and she could
not see at all until they were washed. At first the child had been
frightened and so was the mother, but the old grandmother piped, “So
was I when I was a child, and I never died of it!”
Now they were used to it and they knew it meant nothing except that
children could be so and not die of it. Scarcely had the mother poured
the water before the children came, the boy leading the girl by the
hand. They had crept up silently and not waking the man, fearing his
anger, for with all his merry ways when he was minded to be merry, the
man could be angry and cuff them furiously if he were waked before his
sleep was ended. The two stood silently at the door and the boy winked
his eyes with sleep and stared at his mother and yawned, but the little
girl stood patiently waiting, her eyes sealed fast shut.
Then the mother rose quickly and taking the gray towel that hung upon a
wooden peg driven into the wall she dipped the end of it into the basin
and slowly wiped the girl’s eyes. The child whimpered soundlessly and
only with her breath, and the mother thought to herself as she thought
every morning, “Well and I must see to the balm for this child’s eyes.
Some time or other I must see to it. If I do not forget it when that
next load of rice straw is sold I will tell him to go to a medicine
shop--there is one there by the gate to the right and down a small
street--”
Even as she thought this the man came to the door drawing his garments
about himself, yawning aloud and scratching his head. She said,
speaking aloud her thought, “When you carry that load of rice straw in
to sell do you go to that medicine shop that is by the Water Gate, and
ask for a balm or some stuff for such sore eyes as these.”
But the man was sour with sleep still and he answered pettishly, “And
why should we use our scanty money for sore eyes when she can never die
of it? I had sore eyes when I was a child, and my father never spent
his money on me, though I was his only son who lived, too.”
The mother, perceiving it was an ill time to speak, said no more, and
she went and poured his water out. But she was somewhat angry too, and
she would not give it to him but set it down on the table where he
must reach for it. Nevertheless, she said nothing and for the time she
put the matter from her. It was true that many children had sore eyes
and they grew well as childhood passed, even as the man had, so that
although his eyes were scarred somewhat about the lids as one could see
who looked him full in the face, still he could see well enough if the
thing were not too fine. It was not as though he was a scholar and had
to peer at a book for his living.
Suddenly the old woman stirred and called out feebly, and the mother
fetched a bowl of hot water and took it to her to sup before she rose,
and the old woman supped it loudly, and belched up the evil winds from
her inner emptiness and moaned a little with her age that made her weak
in the morning.
The mother went back into the kitchen then and set about the morning
food, and the children sat close together upon the ground waiting,
huddled in the chill of the early morning. The boy rose at last and
went to where his mother fed the fire, but the girl sat on alone.
Suddenly the sun burst over the eastern hill and the light streamed in
great bright rays over the land and these rays struck upon the child’s
eyes so that she closed them quickly. Once she would have cried out,
but now she only drew her breath in hard as even a grown person might
have done and sat still, her red eyelids pressed close together, nor
did she move until she felt her mother push against her a bowl of food.
* * * * *
Yes, it is true that all days were the same for the mother, but she
never felt them dull and she was well content with the round of the
days. If any had asked her she would have made those bright black eyes
of hers wide and said, “But the land changes from seedtime to harvest
and there is the reaping of the harvest from our own land and the
paying of the grain to the landlord from that land we rent, and there
are the holidays of the festivals and of the new year, yes and even the
children change and grow and I am busy bearing more, and to me there is
naught but change, and change enough to make me work from dawn to dark,
I swear.”
If she had a bit of time there were other women in the hamlet and this
woman due for birth and that one grieving because a child was dead,
or one had a new pattern for the making of a flower upon a shoe, or
some new way to cut a coat. And there were days when she went into the
town with some grain or cabbage to sell, she and the man together, and
there in the town were strange sights to see and think about if ever
she had time to think at all. But the truth was that this woman was
such a one as could live well content with the man and children and
think of nothing else at all. To her--to know the fullness of the man’s
frequent passion, to conceive by him and know life growing within her
own body, to feel this new flesh take shape and grow, to give birth and
feel a child’s lips drink at her breast--these were enough. To rise at
dawn and feed her house and tend the beasts, to sow the land and reap
its fruit, to draw water at the well for drink, to spend days upon the
hills reaping the wild grass and know the sun and wind upon her, these
were enough. She relished all her life: giving birth, the labor on the
land, eating and drinking and sleeping, sweeping and setting in rude
order her house and hearing the women in the hamlet praise her for her
skill in work and sewing; even quarreling with the man was good and set
some edge upon their passion for each other. So therefore she rose to
every day with zest.
On this day when the man had eaten and sighed and taken up his hoe and
gone somewhat halting as he always did to the field, she rinsed the
bowls and sat the old woman out in the warmth of the sun and bade the
children play near but not go too near the pond. Then she took her own
hoe and set forth, stopping once or twice to look back. The thin voice
of the old woman carried faintly on the breeze and the mother smiled
and went on. To watch the door was the sole thing the old woman could
do and she did it proudly. Old and half blind as she was, yet she could
see if anyone came near who should not and she could raise a cry. A
troublesome old woman she was, and a very troublesome old care often,
and worse than any child and more, because she grew wilful and could
not be cuffed as a child could. Yet when the cousin’s wife said one
day, “A very good thing it will be for you, goodwife, when that old
thing is dead, so old and blind and full of aches and pains and pettish
with her food doubtless,” the mother had replied in the mild way she
had when she was secretly tender, “Yes, but a very good use still, too,
to watch the door, and I hope she will live until the girl is bigger.”
Yes, the mother never had it in her heart to be hard on an old woman
like that. Women she had heard who boasted of how they waged war in
a house against their mothers-in-law and how they would not bear the
evil tempers of the elder women. But to this young mother the old woman
seemed but another child of hers, childish and wanting this and that as
children do, so that sometimes it seemed a weary thing to run hither
and thither upon the hills in spring seeking some herb the old soul
longed for, yet when one summer came and there was a fierce flux in
the hamlet so that two strong men died and some women and many little
children, and the old woman lay dying, or so it seemed, and so seemed
that they bought the best coffin they could and set there ready, the
young mother was truly glad when the old woman clung to her life and
came back to it for a while longer. Yes, even though the hardy old
creature had worn out two burial robes, the mother was glad to have
her live. It was a joke in the whole hamlet to see how the old life
hung on. The red coat the young mother had made to bury her in she wore
under a blue coat, as it was the custom to do in these parts, until it
was worn and gone and the old woman fretted and was ill at ease until
the mother had made it new again, and now she wore this second one
merrily and if any called out, “Are you still there then, old one?” she
would pipe back gaily, “Aye, here I be and my good grave clothes on me!
A-wearing them out, I be, and I cannot say how many more I can wear
out!”
And the old soul chuckled to think how good a joke it was that she
lived on and on and could not die.
Now, looking back, the mother smiled and caught the old woman’s voice,
“Rest your heart, good daughter--here am I to watch the door!”
Yes, she would miss this old soul when dead. Yet what use missing? Life
came and went at the appointed hour, and against such appointment there
was no avail.
Therefore the mother went her way tranquil.