Part 15

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.”

And this thought of little children yet to come was the only comfort she could see in her whole life ahead of her.

* * * * *

But doubtless even this comfort might not have lasted except that her old flux laid hold on her again and made her weak as death, too weak to mourn. She lay there on her bed for many days, purged body and heart, and all her sorrow and her comfort too in abeyance because she was not strong enough to mourn or hope. Many there were who came to exhort her, her neighbors and her cousin’s wife and they said, “Goodwife, after all the child was blind,” and they said, “Goodwife, what heaven has made for us we cannot change and it is useless to mourn for anything in this life.” And they said, “Remember your good sons,” and one day when the cousin’s wife said this the mother answered faintly, “Yes, but my elder son’s wife she does not bear, and my younger son he will not wed.” And the cousin’s wife answered heartily, “Give the elder son’s wife a year or two, cousin, for sometimes when seven years are passed barren, a woman will come to her true nature and bear a harvest of good children, for I have seen it so, and as for the lad’s saying he will not wed, why then he has a love somewhere, and we must find out who she is, and if she is fit for him to wed or not. Yes, truly has he found a love, as young folks will these days, for never was there a man in all the world, I swear, who would not wed!”

But the mother whispered, “Bend down your ear, sister, and put it against my lips,” and when the cousin’s wife had done this the mother whispered, “Since sorrow follows me and everything goes wrong with me, I fear sometimes it is that old sin of mine that the gods know about--perhaps heaven will not give me grandsons!” And when she thought of this she closed her eyes and two great tears came out from under her closed lids. She thought of all her sins, not only the one the cousin’s wife knew of, but all the many times she had said she was widow and the letters that she wrote and all the lies. Not that she held the lies pure sin, since all must lie a little now and then for honor’s sake, but here the sin was, that she had lied and said her man was dead. Almost was it now when she thought of it as if she had put her hand forth and brought his death on him, and she had used this lie of death to hope another man would have her. So all these sins of hers, so old she could forget them many days together when she was well, came back fresh and now when she was weak and sorrowful, the heavier because she could not tell them all but must carry them in herself, and heaviest because she was a woman held in good repute among her fellows.

She grew so low in mind that nothing cheered her much except to have her younger son about her. Yes, although the elder son’s wife tended her most carefully and brought her food ready and hot when she would have it and even walked a mile or two to another village to fetch a certain sort of dried curd they made there from beans, and although the mother leaned on her in every sort of way and called to her if she would so much as turn herself in her bed, yet the son’s wife was no comfort to her, and often when she did her most careful best the mother would scold her that her hands were cold or her face so yellow and stare at her in some half hostile, childish way. But still the older woman never blamed the son’s wife any more that she was childless. No, she said no more of that, believing somehow dimly that her own sins might be the cause.

But she rose from her bed at last, and when the autumn was well gone the sharpness of her pain had ebbed with it and she was dreary all day long but not frantic, and she could think of her maid, but the edge of pain was gone. At last she even said to her own heart, “Aye, perhaps even what they say is true, perhaps it is better that my maid is dead. There are so many things worse than death.”

And she held fast to this one thought.

And all the hamlet helped her. No one ever spoke of the maid again before her, nor doubtless anywhere, since there is nothing to be remembered in a blind maid and there are many like her everywhere. First they did not speak of her where the mother was, to spare the mother pain, and then they did not speak because there was naught new to tell of it, and because other news came of other things and people, and the maid’s little life was ended.

For a while the gossip went carefully where the mother was and took thought not to be alone with her, but when she saw how feeble the mother was when she rose up from her bed, she grew cheerful then and called out greeting as she ever had.

And the mother let the past be silent, except sometimes in her own heart.

XVIII

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.

XIX

But one day he did not come when he said he would. And how did she know he would surely come? Because but three days before he had come secretly and by night, walking across the field paths and not through the village, and he scratched lightly on her door, so she was half afraid to open it, thinking it might be robbers. Even as she was about to call out she heard his voice low and quick and luckily the fowls stirred by her bed where they roosted and hid it from the hearing of the elder son and his wife.

She rose then as fast as she could, fumbling her clothes and feeling for the candle, and when she opened the door softly, for she knew it must be for a secret thing he came at such an hour and in such a way, there he was with two other young men, all dressed in the same way he went dressed these days, in black. They had a great bundle of something tied up in paper and rope and when she opened the door with the light in her hand, her son blew the light out for there was a faint moon, enough to see by, and when she cried out but still softly in her pleasure to see him, he said in a whisper, “Mother, there is something of my own I must put under your bed among the winter garments there. Say nothing of it, for I do not want anyone to know it is there. I will come and fetch it again.”

Her heart misgave her somehow when she heard this and she opened her eyes and said soberly, holding her voice low as his, “Son, it is not an ill thing, I hope--I hope you have not taken something that is not yours.”

But he answered hastily, “No, no, mother, nothing robbed, I swear. It is some sheepskins I had the chance to buy cheap, but my brother will blame me for them for he blames me for everything, and I have nowhere to put them. I bought them very cheap and you shall have one next winter, mother, for a coat--we will all wear good clothes next winter!”

She was mightily pleased then and trusted him when he said they were not robbed and it was a joy to her to share a little secret with this son of hers and she said hastily, “Oh, aye, trust me, son! There be many things in this room that my son and son’s wife do not know.”

Then the two men brought the bundle in and they pushed it silently under the bed, and the fowls cackled and stared and the buffalo woke and began to chew its cud.

But the son would not stay at all, and when the mother saw his haste she wondered but she said, “Be sure I will keep them safe, my son, but ought they not to be aired and sunned against the moth?”

To this he answered carelessly, “It is but for a day or two, for we are moving to a larger place and then I shall have a room of my own and plenty.”

When she heard this talk of much room, there was that thought in her mind she had always of his marriage, and she drew him aside somewhat from the other two and looked at him beseechingly. It was the one thing about him that did not please her, that he was not willing for her to wed him, because she well knew what hot blood was and there was sign in this son of her own heat when she was young, and she knew he must sate it somehow and she grudged the waste. Better if he were wed to some clean maid and she could have her grandsons. Now even in the haste of the moment when he was eager to be gone, and the other two waiting in the shadows by the door, even now she laid her hand on his hand and she said coaxingly, her voice still whispering, “But, son, if you have so much room, then why not let me find a maid? I will find the best pretty maid I can--or if you know one, then tell me and let me ask my cousin’s wife to be the one to make the match. I would not force you, son, if it be the one you like is one that I would like too.”

But the young man shook his long locks from his eyes and looked toward the door, and tried to shift her hand away. But she held him fast and coaxed again, “Why should your good heats be spent on wild weeds here and there, my son, and give me no good grandsons? Your brother’s wife is so cold I think there will never be children on my knees unless you put them there. Aye, you are like your own father, and well I know what he was. Plant your seeds in your own land, my son, and reap the harvests for your own house!”

But the young man laughed silently and tossed his hair back again from those glittering eyes of his and said half wondering, “Old women like you, mother, think of nothing but weddings and births of children, and we--we young ones nowadays have cast away all that.... In three days, mother!”

He pulled himself away then and was gone, walking with the other two across the dimly lighted fields.

But three days passed and he did not come. And three more came and went and yet three more, and the mother grew afraid and wondered if some ill had come upon her son. But now in this last year she had not gone easily to the town and so she waited, peevish with all who came near her, not daring to tell what her fears were, and not daring either to leave her room far lest her son’s careful wife chance to draw the curtains aside and see the bundle under her bed.

One night as she lay sleepless with her wondering she rose and lit the candle and stooped and peered under the bed, holding the parted curtains with one hand. There the thing was, wrapped in thick paper, shaped large and square and tied fast with hempen rope. She pressed it and felt of it and there was something hard within, not sheepskin surely.

“It should be taken out to sun, if it is sheepskin,” she muttered, sore at the thought of waste if the moth should creep in and gnaw good skins. But she did not dare to open it and so she let it be. And still her son did not come.

So passed the days until a month was gone and she was near beside herself and would have been completely so, except that something came to wean her mind somewhat from her fears. It was the last thing she dreamed of nowadays and it was that her son’s wife conceived.

Yes, after all these cool years the woman came to herself and did her duty. The elder son went to his mother importantly one day as she sat in the doorway and said, his lean face all wrinkled with his smiles, “Mother, you shall have a grandson.”

She came out of the heavy muse in which she spent her days now and stared at him out of eyes grown a little filmy and said peevishly, “You speak like a fool. Your wife is cold as any stone and as barren and where my little son is I do not know and he scatters his good seed anywhere and will not wed and save it.”

Then the elder son coughed and said plainly, “Your son’s wife has conceived.”

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!”