Then did it seem as though the mother’s heart might have some comfort,
for in the springtime of that year the younger son came home and he
said, “I am come home to stay a while, mother, how long I do not know,
but at least until I am bid to go again.”
But when she rejoiced he made little answer and scarcely seemed
himself. He was so quiet, never singing or playing his capers or
talking in any reckless way as he was used to do, that the mother’s
heart wondered if he might be ill or troubled with some secret thing.
But when she spoke this fear to the cousin’s wife that one said,
mildly, “Well, it may be he is passing out of his childhood. How many
are his years, now? The same I think as my fifth child, and she is
twenty now and nearly twenty-one and wed four years. Yes, twenty-one
is out of childhood, and men should not caper then as once they did,
although I remember that man of yours could caper even to that last day
I saw him.”
“Aye,” said the mother, sighing. Very dim in her now was the memory
of the man, and mingled somehow with this younger son of hers, and
sometimes when she remembered she could not think how her man had
looked alone, because the son’s face rose there in his stead.
But at the end of nine days the younger son went as quickly as he came
and almost secretly, though how he had his message he must go none
knew. But go he did, putting his few garments in a little leathern box
he had. His mother grieved to see him go and cried, “I thought you were
come to stay, my son,” but the son replied, “Oh, I shall be back again,
my mother,” and he seemed secretly gay again somehow, and eager to be
gone.
Thereafter was he always gay. He came and went without warning. He
would come in perhaps one day, his roll of clothing under his arm and
there he was. And for a day or two he would idle about the little
hamlet and sit in the teashop and make great talk of how ill the times
were and how uneven justice was and how some great day all this would
be made better, and men listened staring at each other, not knowing
what to make of it, and the innkeeper scratched his greasy head and
cried, “I do swear it sounds like robbers’ talk to me, neighbors!” But
for the mother’s sake and for the good elder son’s sake they let him
be, thinking him but childish still and to be wiser when he was wed and
had a man’s life.
Yet when he came home this younger son still sat idle, or else he made
as if to help his brother at some light task, although when he did this
the brother said scornfully always, “I thank you, brother, but I am
used to doing work without you.”
Then the youth looked at him in his impudent way, for he grew a very
impudent eye these last days, and he would not quarrel but he laughed
coolly and he said, and spat in the dust while he said it, “As you
will, my elder brother,” and he was so cool his elder brother well-nigh
burst with hatred of him and gladly would have told him to stay away
forever except that a man may not tell his brother this and still be
righteous in his neighbors’ eyes.
But the mother saw no fault in him at all. Even when he talked his big
talk with her and said against his elder brother, “I swear these little
landowners that must even rent before they can live, these little men,
they are so small and proud that they deserve what shall befall them
one day when all the land is made common and no one may have it for his
own.”
The mother understood no word of this except the first and she said
plaintively, “Aye, I do think, too, your brother is over proud
sometimes, and his wife barren, too.”
For everything this younger son said seemed wise to the mother, now she
clung to him so fast. To her when he came home it made a festival, and
she would have made each day that he was there a holiday if she could
have done it and would have killed a fowl for him and made better food
than usual. But this she could not do. The fowls were her elder son’s
now, and she could not do better than to steal an egg or two from some
nest she found and keep them for her younger son, and when he came pour
them into boiling water secretly for him to sup and add to the dish a
little sugar that she had saved somehow.
It came to be that whenever any little dainty fell to her or if she
went into a house in the hamlet for a visit with a neighbor, since she
was so idle now in her age and nothing she must do, and if someone gave
her a peach or a dried persimmon or a little cake or some such thing
for kindness, she saved it for her younger son. Much time she spent
in watching these small bits to see they did not mold, and she kept
them as long as she could, and when he put off coming home and she was
forced to eat them lest they spoil she felt it no pleasure and scarcely
could she enjoy the dainty, although she loved food, too. Often would
she open the drawer she kept them in and turn the little store over
with her fingers and think to herself, “He does not come. He is not
here. If I had a little grandson I could give them to him when my son
does not come. I have no one, if my son does not come.”
And many hours of each day she sat and looked down the road to catch a
glimpse of him as he came and when she saw the glint of a man’s robe
she would run forward as best she could and when she saw it was her
son come home she took his warm smooth hand in her old dry one and
she pulled him into her own room and poured out for him the tea the
careful son’s wife kept there for her and then with pleasure would
she bring out the little store she had for him. And she sat down and
watched him lovingly while he picked about among the bits and chose the
best. Sometimes he turned his dainty nose aside and said, “That cake is
mildewed, mother,” or he said, “I never liked a rice flour cake so dry.”
Then she would answer sorrowfully, “Is it too dry, my son? Well, and I
thought you would still like it maybe,” and when he would not have it
she ate it up herself to keep from wasting it, grieving that it was not
good enough for him.
Then when he had eaten what he wished she sat to hear what he would
say. Never would he answer all her questions freely as she wished he
would and when she pressed him closely he seemed to be in haste to go
away, and when she saw this was so, she learned to ask him nothing and
he learned, too, to put her off. For as she grew older she forgot more
easily and was put off more easily too, and to put her off he would
tell her of some wonder he had seen, a juggler who would let a snake
crawl down his throat and pull it up again by the tail, or a woman who
had borne a two-headed child that she showed for a penny to those who
wished to see it, or some such strange sight as may be seen in any town.
And the old mother was diverted by his talk and cried when he was gone,
and she could not keep from telling of these wonders to the son and
his wife. Once when she did so the elder son was bent over an earthen
bowl of water, washing off his face after labor in the fields, and he
looked up, his face wet, and said most bitterly, “Aye, he does not feed
you nor do aught else for you but throw a bit of a coin to you as to a
beggar. He comes here and eats and never puts his hand to hoe or plough
and tells these tales and he is more to you than--” and he bent his
face again and made a noise about his washing and would not listen to
what his mother had to say in answer.
But this was all she knew of her younger son. She knew his lithe and
pretty body, and she knew the pale gold of his skin, the hue a city man
is and different from the dark and ruddy brown of country folk, and she
knew how the nails grew long upon his two little fingers, and she knew
his teeth were white and his black hair oiled and shining, and she knew
how he let his hair grow long about his ears and how he tossed his head
to keep his eyes clear of the glossy hair.
Yes, and she knew and loved his ready smile and his bold eyes and she
loved his carelessness with silver and how he would reach into his
girdle and give her what he had or if he had none ask of her what she
had, and more than to have him give to her she loved to take what she
had and press it on him. All he gave her she saved to give it back
again when he might want it. It was the best use she knew for her small
store.