XI

In the night of that same day the wind rose suddenly as a tiger’s roar

out of the distant hills, and it blew the clouds down out of the sky

where they had hung heavy and full of rain, their light long gone. And

the sudden rains poured and washed the heats out of that day. When at

last the mist was gone, the dawn, pure and cool, grew quiet and fell

from a gray and tranquil sky.

Now out of that storm and chill came down from heaven suddenly, at

last, the old woman’s death. She had sat asleep too long, her old body

naked for the wind to blow upon when the sun went down, and when the

mother came home at twilight, silent, and as if she came from the field

and honest labor, she found the old woman in her bed and cold with

sudden chills and aches and she cried out, “Some wicked spirit has

caught me, daughter! Some ill wind fell on me!” And she moaned and put

out her little shriveled hand and the mother took it and it was dry and

burning hot.

Almost was the mother glad to have it so. Almost did she rejoice there

was this thing to take her mind from her own heart and from the sweet

and evil thing that she had done that day. She murmured, “It was an

ill black sky--very nearly I came home to see if you sat under such a

sullen sky, but I thought you would see its hue and come in from under

it.”

“I slept, though,” the old woman wailed, “I slept, and I slept on and

we all slept, and when I woke the sun was gone and I was cold as death.”

Then the mother hastened and made hot water for the old woman and put

some ginger in it and hot herbs and the old woman drank it. Yet in

the night her dry fever grew and she complained she could not breathe

because some imp sat on her chest and drove his knife into her lungs,

and after a while she ceased talking and lay breathing roughly from her

pressed lungs.

And the mother was glad she must not sleep. Through the night she was

glad she must sit beside the old woman’s bed and watch her and give

her water when she moaned for it and put the quilt about her when she

pushed it off and cried that she burned and yet shivered too. Outside

the night had grown black and mighty rains poured down upon the

thatched roof and here and there it broke through and leaked, so that

the mother must drag the old woman’s bed out from its corner where the

rain seeped in, and over the bed where the children slept she laid a

reed mat to hold the leaks off. Yet all these things she was glad to

have to do and glad to be so busy all night long.

When the morning came the old soul was worse. Yes, any eye could see

it, and the mother sent the lad for the cousin and he came and the

cousin’s wife came and this neighbor and that and they all looked at

the old woman who lay now only partly knowing what was about her, and

partly dazed with her fever and the pain she had when she breathed.

Each one cried out what must be done and what remedy could be tried,

and the mother hastened here and there to try them all in turn. Once

the old woman came to herself and seeing the crowd gathered there, she

panted from her laden breast, “There is an imp sits here on me and

holds me down.... My hour--my hour--”

Then the mother hastened to her and she saw there was a thing the old

soul had to say and could not get it out, but she plucked trembling at

the shroud she wore that was full of patches now, and she had laughed

when every patch was set in place and cried she would outlive the

garment yet. But now she plucked at it and the mother bent her head low

and the old woman gasped, “This shroud--all patched--my son--”

The crowd stared to hear these words and looked wondering at each

other, but the elder lad said quickly, “I know what she wants, mother.

She wants her third shroud new to lie in, the one my father said he

would send, and she ever said she would outlive this one she has now.”

The old woman’s face lit faintly then and they all cried out who heard

it, “How stout an old soul is this!” and they said, “Well, here is a

very curious brave old woman, and she will have her third shroud as she

ever said she would!”

And some dim, dying merriment came on the old woman’s owlish sunken

face and she gasped once more, “I will not die till it is made and on--”

In greatest haste then was the stuff bought, and the cousin went to buy

it and the mother told him, “Buy the very best you can of stout red

cotton stuff and tomorrow I will pay you if you have the silver by you

now.” For she had determined that the old woman would have the very

best, and that night when the house was still she dug into the earth

and got the silver out that she had hid there and she took out what was

needful to send the old mother to her death content.

And indeed, it seemed as if the thing she would not think of now, the

memory of an hour she drove into her secret places, busying herself and

glad to be so busy, it seemed as if this waiting memory made her kind

and eager to be spent for these who were hers. Somehow it eased her of

that secret hour to do her scrupulous best now. For these two nights

she slept none at all, wearying herself eagerly, nor was she ever angry

at the children, and she was most gentle to the old and dying woman.

When the cousin fetched the cloth she held it to the old dying eyes and

she said, speaking loudly now, for the old woman grew deaf and blind

more quickly every hour, “Hold hard, old mother, till I have it made!”

And the old soul said, bravely, “Aye--I will not die!” though she had

not breath for any speech now and scarcely any breath at all, so that

every one she drew came screeching through her lungs pitifully, very

hard to draw.

Then the mother made haste with her needle, and she made the garments

of the bright good stuff, red as a bride’s coat, and the old woman lay

watching her, her dim eyes fixed upon the stuff where it glowed in the

mother’s lap. She could not eat now or swallow any food or drink, not

even the warm human milk one kindly woman milked from her own breast

with a bowl, since sometimes this good milk will save an old dying man

or woman. She clung but to this scanty bit of air, waiting.

And the mother sewed and sewed, and the neighbors brought in food so

that she need not stop for anything but could sew on. In one day and

a part of the night it was done, and the cousin and the cousin’s wife

stood by to see it and a neighbor or two, and indeed the whole hamlet

did not sleep, but stayed awake to wonder if the mother would win that

race, or death.

But it was done at last, the scarlet burial robes were done, and the

cousin lifted the old body and the mother and the cousin’s wife drew

on the fine new garments on the old and withered limbs, brown now and

dry as old sticks of some dead tree. But the old soul knew when it was

finished. Speak she could not, but she lay and drew one last rattling

breath or two, and opened wide her eyes and smiled her toothless smile,

knowing she had lived through to her third shroud, which was her whole

desire, and so she died triumphantly.

* * * * *

Yet when the burial day was over and the need for being busy was past,

still the mother busied herself. She labored as she never had upon the

land and when the lad would do a thing she had begun she cried roughly,

“Let me do it--I miss the old mother sorely and more sorely than I

thought I could, and I blame myself that I did not go home that day and

see if she were warm when the storm came up and covered the sun.”

And she let it be thought through the hamlet that she sorrowed for the

old woman gone, and blamed herself, and many praised her for her sorrow

and said, “How good a daughter-in-law to mourn like this!” And they

comforted her and said, “Do not mourn so, goodwife. She was very old

and her life ended, and when the hour is come that has been set for

each of us before ever we can walk or talk, then what need of mourning?

You have your man alive yet, and you have your two sons. Take heart,

goodwife.”

But it was an ease to her too to have every cause to cover up her fear

and melancholy. For she had cause to be afraid, and she had time now,

even while she worked upon her land, to take out of her heart that fear

which had been hiding there ever since the hour in the rising storm.

Glad she was all these days that she had been in such haste, glad even

for the old woman’s death, and to herself she thought most heavily, “It

is better that the old soul is dead and cannot know what is to come if

it must come.”

One month passed and she was afraid. Two months passed and three and

harvest came, the grain was threshed, and what had been fear beneath

her labor day by day was now a certainty. There was no more to doubt

and she knew the worst had befallen her, mother of sons, goodwife

honored in her hamlet, and she cursed the day of the storm and her own

foolish heats. Well she might have known that with her own body all hot

and open and waiting as it had been, her mind all eaten up with one

hunger, well she might have known it was such a moment as must bear

fruit. And the man’s body, too, so strong and good and full of its own

power--how had she ever dreamed it could be otherwise?

Here was strange motherhood now that must be so secret and watched with

such dismay in the loneliness of the night while the children slept.

And however she might be sickened she dared not show it. Strange it was

that when she bore her proper children she was not sick at all, but now

her food turned on her when she ate a mouthful. It was as though this

seed in her was so strong and lusty that it grew like a foul weed in

her, doing what it would with her body ruthlessly, and she could not

let a sign of it be seen.

Night after night she sat up in her bed, too ill at ease to lie down,

and she groaned within herself, “I wish I were alone again and had not

this thing here in me--I wish I were alone again as I was, and I would

be content--” and it came to her often and wildly that she would hang

herself there upon the bedpost. But yet she could not. There were her

own good children, and she looked upon their sleeping faces and she

could not, and she could not bear to think of the neighbors’ looks on

her dead body when they searched her for her cause of death. There was

nothing then save that she must live on.

Yet in spite of all this pain the woman was not healed of her desire

toward that townsman, though she often hated while she longed for him.

Rather did it seem he held her fast now by this secret hold that grew

within her. She had repented that she ever yielded to him and yet she

yearned for him often day and night. In the midst of her true shame and

all her wishing she had withstood him, she yearned for him still. Yet

she was ashamed to seek him out, and fearful too lest she be seen, and

she could only wait again until he came, because it seemed to her if

she went and sought him then she was lost indeed, and after that stuff

for any man to use.

But here was a strange thing. The man was finished with her. He came no

more throughout that whole summer until the grain was reaped when he

must come, and he came hard and quarrelsome as he used to be and he

took his full measure of his grain so that the lad cried wondering,

“How have we made him angry, mother, who was so kind to us last year?”

And the woman answered sullenly, “How can I know?” But she knew. When

he would not look at her, she knew.

Not even on the day of harvest feasting would he look at her, although

she washed herself freshly and combed her hair and smoothed it down

with oil and put on a clean coat and trousers and her one pair of

stockings and the shoes she had made for the old woman’s burial day.

So garbed and her cheeks red with sick hope and shyness and her eyes

bright with all her desperate secret fears, she hurried here and there

busying herself before his eyes about the feast, and she spoke to this

one and to that, forcing herself to be loud and merry. The women stared

astonished at her flaming cheeks and glittering eyes and at her loud

voice and laughter, she who used to be so quiet where men were.

But for all this the man did not look at her. He drank of the new

wine made of rice and as he tasted it he cried loudly to the farmers,

“I will have a jug or two of that for myself, if you can spare it,

farmers, and set the clay seal on well and sound to keep it sweet.” But

he never looked at her, or if she came before him his eyes passed over

her as they might over any common country wife whose name he did not

know.

Then the woman could not bear it. Yes, although she knew she should be

glad he did not want her any more, she could not bear it. She went home

in the middle of that day of feasting and she searched from out their

secret place those trinkets he had given her once and she was trembling

while she searched. She hung the rings in her ears, taking out the

little wires she had worn there all these years to keep the holes open,

and she pushed the rings over her hard strong fingers, and once more

she made a chance to see him, standing on the edge of the feast where

women stood to serve the men who ate. There the gossip sat among them,

gay for the day in her new shoes, and her feet thrust out to show them

off, and she cried out, “Well, goodwife, there you are and you did buy

your trinkets after all and wear them too, although your man is still

away!”

She cried so loudly that all the women turned to look and laugh and

the men even turned to see and smile a little, too, at the women’s

merriment. Then the agent, hearing the laughter and the witty sayings

that arose against the woman, looked up carelessly and haughtily from

his bowl, his jaws moving as he looked, for his mouth was full of food,

and he said carelessly and loud enough for her to hear, “What woman is

it?” And his eyes fell on her scarlet face and he looked away as if he

had never known her and fell to his bowl again. And the woman, feeling

the scarlet draining from her face too fast, crept out and ran away and

they laughed to see her run for shame at all their merriment.

From that day on the mother kept out of the way of others and she

stayed alone with her children, and hid the growing of the wild thing

within her. Yet she pondered day and night what she could do. Outwardly

she worked as she ever had, storing the grain and setting all in order

for the winter, and when the festival of mid-autumn came and the hamlet

feasted and each house had its own joy and the little street was merry

with the pleasure and rejoicing and the houses full of grain and food,

the mother, though she had no joy, yet made a few small moon cakes for

her own children, too. When the moon rose on the night of the feast,

they ate the cakes upon the threshing-floor and under the willow trees

and saw the full moon shining down as bright as any sun almost.

But they ate gravely and it seemed the children felt their own lack

and the mother’s lack of joy, and at last the eldest said, solemnly,

“Sometimes I think my father must be dead because he never comes.”

The mother started then and said quickly, “Evil son you be to speak of

such a thing as your own father’s death!”

But a thought had come to her.

And the lad said again, “Sometimes I think I will start forth seeking

for him. I might go when the wheat is sown this year, if you will give

me a little silver, and I can tie my winter clothes upon my back, if it

be I am delayed in finding him.”

Then the mother grew afraid and she cried to turn his mind away, “Eat

another little cake, my son, and wait another year or so. What would

I do if you went away and did not come back either? Wait until the

younger son is large enough to fill your place.”

But the younger son cried stoutly, being wilful always when he had a

wish to make, “But if my brother goes, I will go too,” and he set his

little red lips pouting and he stared angrily at his mother. Then the

mother said reproachfully to the eldest, “There--you see what you do

when you say such things and set his mind on wandering!” And she would

not hear any more of it.

But the thought clung in her mind, and afterwards she pondered on it.

Here was she alone now these five years. Five years--and would not a

man have come long since if he were coming? Five years gone--and he

must be dead. It must be she was widow, perhaps a widow years long, and

never knew it. And the landlord’s agent was not wed. She was widow and

he not wed, for she had heard him say that his wife was dead last year

but she had not heeded, for what was it to her then, who was not widow?

Yes, she must be widow. That night she watched the great moon set

high in the heavens and she watched far into the night, the children

sleeping and all the hamlet sleeping save a dog here and there barking

at the enormous moon, and more and more it seemed to her she must be

widow, and if she were--if she were wed as soon as he would say, would

it be soon enough?

And in the strangest way the thing hastened upon her. The lad would

not forget his plan and he worked feverishly to plough the fields and

sow the wheat and when it was done he would have set out that very day

to find his father. Tall the lad was now as his father had been almost,

and lean and hard as bamboo and as supple, and no longer any little

child to bear refusal and he was quiet and stubborn in his nature,

never forgetting a plan he made, and he said, “Let me go now and see

where my father is--give me the name of the city where he lives and the

house where he works!”

Then in despair the mother said to put him off, “But I burned those

letters and now must we wait until the new year comes when he will send

another.”

And he cried, “Yes, but you said you knew!”

And she said hastily, “So I thought I did, but what with this and that

and the old mother’s dying, I have forgot again, and I know I have

forgot, because when she lay dying, I would have sent a letter to

him and I could not because I had forgot.” And when he looked at her

reproachfully, scarcely believing her, she cried out angrily, “And how

did I know you would want to go and leave it all on me now when you are

just old enough to be some worth? I never dreamed that you would leave

your mother, and I know a letter will come at the new year as it always

has.”

So the lad could but put aside his wish then for the time and he waited

in his sullen humor, for he had set his heart to see his father.

Scarcely could he remember him, but he seemed to remember him as a

goodly merry man and the lad longed after him for in these days he did

not love his mother well because she seemed always out of temper with

him and not understanding of any speech, and he longed for his father.

At last the mother did not know what to do, except that something she

must do and quickly, for even if the letter was not written at new year

time, the lad would worry at her and sooner or later she must tell him

all the truth and how would she ever make him see how what had been a

little lie at first to save her pride as woman, had grown great and

firm now with its roots in years, and very hard to change?

And then she tried to comfort herself again, and to say the man must

be dead. Whoever heard of any man who would not come back sometimes to

his land and his sons and his old home, if he yet lived? He was dead.

She was sure he was dead, and so saying many times, sureness came into

her heart and she believed him dead and there was needed but an outward

sign to satisfy the lad and those who were in the hamlet.

Once more she went into the town then on this old task, and she went

and sought a new letter writer this time, whom she had never seen

before, and she sighed and said, “Write to my brother’s wife and say

her husband is dead. And how did he die? He was caught in a burning

house, for the house where he lived caught on fire from a lamp turned

over by some slave, and there he burned up in his sleep and even his

ashes are lost so there is no body to send home.”

And the letter writer wrote her own name for the sister’s name and she

gave a false name as of some stranger who wrote to tell the news and

for a little more he wrote the name of some other town than this, and

he scented something strange here, but he let it pass, too, since it

was none of his affair and he had silver here to pay for silence.

So was the woman saved. But she could not wait to finish her salvation.

No, she must let the landlord’s agent know somehow, and she went here

and there and asked where the landlord’s old home was, where he did not

live now but where the agent doubtless was well known. And she grew

heedless in her anxiety to be saved, and she ran there and it seemed

the gods were with her on that day and aided her, for there he came

alone and she met him at the gate of the house and as he was ready to

turn in to it. Then she cried out and laid her hand upon his arm, and

he looked down at her and at her hand upon his arm and he said, “What

is it, woman?”

And she whispered, “Sir, I am widowed--I have but heard this day I am

widowed!”

And he shook her hand off and he said loudly, “What is that to me!” And

when she looked at him painfully he said roughly, “I paid you--I paid

you very well!” And suddenly someone he knew called out from the street

and laughed and said, “How now, good fellow? And a very pretty, lusty

goodwife, too, to lay hold on a man thus!”

But the man called back, scarcely lifting those heavy lids of his, and

he said coldly, “Aye--if you like them coarse and brown, but I do not!”

And he went on his way.

She stood there then astonished and ashamed and understanding nothing.

But how had she been paid? What had he ever given her? And suddenly she

remembered the trinkets he had given her. That was her pay! Yes, by

those small worthless trinkets he held himself free of all that he had

done.

* * * * *

What could she do, then, knowing all? She set her feet steadfastly upon

the road to home, her heart deathly still within her, and she said over

and over, “It is not time to weep yet--the hour is not come yet when

I may weep.” And she would not let her weeping come. No, the weeping

gathered in her great and tremulous but she would not weep. She held

her heart hard and silent for a day or two, until the news came, the

letter she had written, and she took it to the reader in the hamlet,

and she said steadily as she gave it to him, “I fear there is ill news

in it, uncle--it is come out of time.”

Then the old man took it and he read it and started and he cried, “It

is bad news, goodwife--be ready!”

“Is he ill?” she said in her same steady way.

And the old man laid the letter down and took the spectacles from his

eyes and he answered solemnly, staring at her, “Dead!”

Then the mother threw her apron over her head and she wept. Yes, she

could weep now and she wept, safely, and she wept on and on as though

she knew him truly dead. She wept for all her lonely years and because

her life had been so warped and lone and she wept because her destiny

had been so ill and the man gone, and she wept because she dared not

bear this child she had in her, and last she wept because she was a

woman scorned. All the weeping she had been afraid to do lest child

hear her or neighbor, now she could weep out and none need know how

many were the sorrows that she wept.

The women of the hamlet came running out to comfort her when they heard

the news and they comforted her and cried out she must not fall ill

with weeping, for there were her children still and the two good sons,

and they went and fetched the sons and led them to her for comfort, and

the two lads stood there, the eldest silent, pale as though in sudden

illness, and the youngest bellowing because his mother wept.

Suddenly in the midst of the confusion a loud howl arose and a noisier

weeping than the mother’s, and it was the gossip’s, who was suddenly

overcome with all the sorrow round about her, and the great oily tears

ran down her cheeks and she sobbed loudly, “Look at me, poor soul--I

am worse off than you, for I have no son at all--not one! I am more

piteous than you, goodwife, and worse than any woman I ever saw for

sorrow!” And her old sorrow came up in her so fresh and new that all

the women were astonished and they turned to comfort her, and in the

midst of the fray the mother went home, her two sons after her, weeping

silently as she went, for she could not stay her weeping. Yes, she sat

herself down and wept at her own door, and the elder lad wept silently

a little too, now, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, and the

little boy wept on, not understanding what it meant to have his father

dead, since he could not remember what the father was, and the girl

wept and pressed her hands against her eyes and moaned softly and she

said, “I must weep because my father is dead--my tears burn me so--yet

must I weep for my dead father!”

But the mother could not weep to any end, and she knew she could not

until she had done what she must do. So for the time she ceased her

weeping and comforted them somewhat with her own silence while she

thought what she would do.

She would have said there was no path for her to turn, unless to death,

but there was one way, and it was to tear from out her body this greedy

life she felt there growing. But she could not do it all alone. There

must be one to aid her, and there was none to turn to save her cousin’s

wife. Much the mother wished she need not tell a soul what she must do,

and yet she did not know how to do it alone. And the cousin’s wife was

a coarse good creature, too, one who knew the earth and the ways of

men and knew full well the earthy body of a woman that is fertile and

must bear somehow. But how to tell her?

Yet the thing came easily enough, for in a day or so thereafter when

the two women stood alone upon a pathway talking, having met by some

small accident or other, the cousin’s wife said in her loud and kindly

way, “Cousin, eat and let your sorrowing cease, for I do swear your

face is as yellow as though you had worms in you.”

And the thought rose in the mother’s mind and she said it, low and

bitterly, “So I have a worm in me, too, that eats my life out.”

And when the cousin’s wife stared, the mother put her hand to her belly

and she said, halting, “Something does grow in me, cousin, but I do not

know what it can be unless it is an evil wind of some sort.”

Then the cousin’s wife said, “Let me see it,” and the mother opened her

coat and the cousin’s wife felt her where she had begun to swell, and

she said astonished, “Why, cousin, it is like a child there, and if you

had a husband, I would say that it was so with you!”

Then the mother said nothing but she hung her head miserably and could

not lift her eyes, and the cousin saw a stirring in her belly and she

cried out in a terror, “It is a child, I swear, yet how can it be

except it be conceived by spirit, since your man is gone these many

years? But I have heard it said it does happen sometimes to women and

in olden times it happened often, if they were of a saintly sort, that

gods came down and visited them. Yet you be no great saint, cousin, a

very good woman, it is true, and held in good respect, but still angry

and sudden sometimes and of a lusty temper. But have you felt a god

about?”

Then the mother would like to have told another lie and she longed to

say she did feel a god one day when she stood in the wayside shrine to

shelter in a storm, but when she opened her lips to shape the lie she

could not. Partly she was afraid to lie so blackly about the old decent

god there whose face she covered, and partly she was so weary now she

could lie no more. So she lifted her head and looked miserably at the

cousin’s wife and the red flowed into her pale cheeks and spotted them;

she would have given half her life now if she could have told a full

deceiving lie. But she could not and there it was. And the good woman

who looked at her saw how it was and she asked no question nor how it

came about, but she said only, “Cover yourself, sister, lest you be

cold.”

And the two walked on a while and at last the mother said in a very

passion of bitterness, “It does not matter who begot it and none shall

ever know and if you will help me through this, cousin and my sister, I

will care for you as long as my life is in me.”

And the cousin’s wife said in a low voice, “I have not lived so many

years as I have and never seen a woman rid herself of a thing she did

not want.”

And for the first time the mother saw a hope before her and she

whispered, “But how--but how--” and the cousin’s wife said, “There are

simples to be bought if one has the money, strong stuff that kills

woman and child sometimes, and always it is harder than a birth, but if

you take enough, it will do.”

And the mother said, “Then let it kill me, if it will only kill this

thing, and so save my sons and these others the knowledge.”

Then the cousin’s wife looked steadfastly at the mother and she stopped

where she was and looked at her, and she said, “Yes, cousin, but will

it come about again like this, now that your man is dead?”

Then did the mother swear and she cried in agony, “No, and I will throw

myself into the pond and cool myself forever if it comes on me hot

again as it did in the summer.”

That night she dug out from the ground a good half of her store of

silver and when the chance came she gave it to the cousin’s wife to buy

the simples.

On a night when all was bought and the stuff brewed, the cousin’s wife

came in the darkness and she whispered to the waiting woman, “Where

will you drink it? For it cannot be done in any house, being so bloody

a business as it is.”

Then the mother remembered that wayside shrine and how lonely it was

with so few wayfarers passing by, and none in the night, and to that

wayside shrine the two women went, and the mother drank the brew and

she lay down upon the ground, and waited.

Presently in the deep night the stuff seized on her with such gripes as

she never dreamed of and she gave herself up to die. And as the agony

went on she came at last to forget all except the agony, and she grew

dazed with it. Yet in the midst of it she remembered not to scream to

ease herself, nor did they dare to light a torch or any little light,

lest any might by some strange chance pass and see from even a distance

an unaccustomed light in that shrine.

No, the mother must suffer on as best she could. The sweat poured down

her body like rain and she was dead to everything except the fearful

griping, as though some beast laid hold on her to tear the very vitals

from her, and at last it seemed a moment came when they were torn from

her indeed, and she gave one cry.

Then the cousin’s wife came forward with a mat she had, and took what

was to be taken, and she felt and whispered sadly, “It would have been

a boy, too. You are a fortunate mother who have so many sons in you.”

But the mother groaned and said, “There never will be another now.”

Then she lay back and rested on the ground a little and when she could

they went back to the house, she leaning on the kindly cousin’s arm and

holding back her moans. And when they passed a pond, the cousin threw

the roll of matting into it.

* * * * *

For many days thereafter the mother lay ill and weak upon her bed,

and the good cousin aided her in what way she could, but she lay ill

and half-sick the winter through that year so that to lift a load and

carry it to market was a torture and yet she must do it now and then.

At last, though, she rose sometimes more easily on a fair day and sat a

while in the sun. So spring came on and she grew somewhat better, but

still not herself, and often when the cousin brought some dainty dish

to coax her she would press her hand to her breast and say, “It seems

I cannot swallow. There is something heavy here. My heart hangs here

between my breasts so heavy and full I cannot swallow. My heart seems

full of pain I cannot weep away. If I could weep once to the end I

would be well again.”

So it seemed to her. But she could not weep. All spring she could not

weep nor could she work as she was used, and the elder son struggled to

do what must be done, and the cousin helped more than he was able. And

the mother could not weep or work.

So it was until a certain day came when the barley was bearded, and

she sat out in the sun listlessly, her hair not combed that morning

she was so weary. Suddenly there was the sound of a step, and when she

looked up that landlord’s agent stood. When the elder son saw him he

came forward and he said, “Sir, my father is dead now and I stand in

his place, for my mother has been ill these many months. I must go with

you now to guess the harvest, if you have come for that, for she is not

able.”

Then the man, this townsman, this smooth-haired, smooth-lipped man,

looked at the mother full and carelessly and well he knew what had

befallen her, and she knew he knew and she hung her head in silence.

But the man said carelessly, “Come then, lad,” and the two went away

and left her there alone.

Now well she knew she had no hope from this man. Nor did she want him

any more, her body had been weak so long. But this last sight of him

was the last touch she needed. She felt the lump she called her heart

melt somehow and the tears rushed to her eyes, and she rose and walked

by a little unused path across the land to a rude lonely grave she

knew, the grave of some unknown man or woman, so old none knew whose it

was now, and she sat there on the grassy mound and waited. And at last

she wept.

First her tears came slow and bitter but freely after a while and then

she laid her head against the grave and wept in the way that women do

when their hearts are too full with sorrow of their life and spilled

and running over and they care no more except they must be eased

somehow because all of life is too heavy for them. And the sound of

her weeping reached the little hamlet even, borne on the winds of

spring, and hearing it the mothers in the houses and the wives looked

at each other and they said softly, “Let her weep, poor soul, and ease

herself. She has not been eased these many months of widowhood. Tell

her children to let her weep.”

And so they let her weep.

* * * * *

But after long weeping the mother heard a sound, a soft rustling there

beside her, and looking up in the twilight, for she had wept until the

sun was set, there came her daughter, feeling her way over the rough

ground and she cried as she came, “Oh, mother, my cousin’s wife said

let you weep until you eased yourself, but are you not eased yet with

so much weeping?”

Then was the mother roused. She was roused and she looked at the child

and sighed and she sat up and smoothed back her loosened hair and wiped

her swollen eyes and rose and the child put out her hand and felt for

her mother’s hand, shutting her eyes against the shining evening glow

that was rosy where the sun went down, and she said plaintively, “I

wish I never had to weep, for when I weep, my tears do burn me so!”

At these few words the mother came to herself, suddenly washed clean.

Yes, these few words, spoken at the end of such a day, this small young

hand feeling for her, called her back from some despair where she had

lived these many months. She was mother again and she looked at her

child and coming clear at last from out her daze she cried, “Are your

eyes worse, my child?”

And the girl answered, “I think I am as I ever was, except light seems

to burn me more, and I do not see your faces clear as once I did, and

now my brother grows so tall, I cannot tell if it be you or he who

comes, unless I hear you speak.”

Then the mother, leading this child of hers most tenderly, groaned to

herself, “Where have I been these many days? Child, I will go tomorrow

when dawn comes and buy some balm to make you well as I ever said I

would!”

That night it seemed to all of them as though the mother had returned

from some far place and was herself again. She put their bowls full of

food upon the table and bestirred herself, her face pale and spent but

tranquil and full of some wan peace. She looked at each child as though

she had not seen him for a year or two. Now she looked at the little

boy and she cried, “Son, tomorrow I will wash your coat. I had not seen

how black it is and ragged. You are too pretty a lad to go so black as

that and I your mother.” And to the elder one she said, “You told me

you had a finger cut and sore the other day. Let me see it.” And when

she washed his hand clean and put some oil upon the wound, she said,

“How did you do it, son?”

And he opened his eyes surprised and said, “I told you, mother, that I

cut it when I made the sickle sharp upon the whetting stone and ready

to reap the barley soon.”

And she made haste to answer, “Aye, I remember now, you said so.”

As for the children, they could not say how it was, but suddenly there

seemed warmth about them and this warmth seemed to come from their

mother and good cheer filled them and they began to talk and tell her

this and that and the little lad said, “I have a penny that I gained

today when we were tossing in the street to see who could gain it, and

ever I gain the penny first I am so lucky.”

And the mother looked on him avidly and saw how fair and sound a lad he

was and while she wondered at herself because she had not seen it long

ago, she answered him with hearty, sudden love, “Good lad to save the

penny and not buy sweet stuff and waste it!” But at this the lad grew

grave and said, troubled, “But only for today, mother, for tomorrow I

had thought to buy the stuff and there is no need to save it for I can

gain a penny every day or so,” and he waited for her to refuse him, but

she only answered mildly, “Well, and buy it, son, for the penny is your

own.”

Then the silent elder lad came forth with what he had to say, and he

said, “My mother, I have a curious thing to tell you and it is this.

Today when we were in the field, the landlord’s agent and I, he said it

was the last year he would come to this hamlet, for he is going out

to try destiny in other parts. He said he was aweary of this walking

over country roads and he was aweary of these common farmers and their

wives, and it was the same thing season after season, and he was going

to some city far from here.”

This the mother heard and she paused to hear it, and she sat motionless

and staring at the lad through the dim light of the flickering candle

she had lit that night and set upon the table. Then when he was

finished she waited for an instant and let the words sink in her heart.

And they sank in like rain upon a spent and thirsty soil and she cried

in a low warm voice, “Did he say so, my son?” and then as though it

mattered nothing to her she added quickly, “But we must sleep and rest

ourselves for tomorrow when the dawn comes I go to the city to buy the

balm for your sister’s eyes and make her well again.”

And now her voice was full and peaceful, and when the dog came begging

she fed him well and recklessly, and the beast ate happy and amazed,

gulping all down in haste and sighing in content when he was full and

fed.

That night she slept. They all slept and sleep covered them all, mother

and children, deep and full of rest.