The Mother: A Novel

by Pearl S. Buck

  Slowly the sun climbed to noon and she put her spinning down and rose.

  “He will be coming home soon and hungry for all his blue robe,” she said dryly, and the old woman answered, cackling with her ready, feeble laughter, “Oh, aye, what is on a man’s belly is not the same as what is in it—”

  The mother went then and dipped rice with a gourd from the basket where they kept it stored, and she leveled the gourd with her other hand so not a grain was spilled, and she poured the rice into a basket made of finely split bamboo and went along the path to the pond’s edge, and as she went she looked down the street. But she saw no glimpse of new blue. She stepped carefully down the bank and began to wash the rice, dipping the basket into the water and scrubbing the grain with her brown strong hands, dipping it again and again until the rice shone clean and white as wet pearls. On her way back she stooped to pull a head of cabbage where it grew, and threw a handful of grass to the water buffalo tethered under a tree, and so she came again to the house. Now the elder boy came home from the street leading his sister by the hand, and the mother asked him quietly, “Saw you your father on the street or in the inn or at anyone’s door?”

  “He sat a while at the inn drinking tea this morning,” the boy replied, wondering. “And I saw his robe, new and blue, and it was pretty and our cousin when he knew how much it cost said it had cost my father very dear.”

  “Aye, it cost him dear, I swear!” said the mother, suddenly, her voice hard.

  And the girl piped up, echoing her brother, “Yes, his robe was blue—even I could see that it was blue.”

  But the mother said no more. The babe began to weep where he lay sleeping in a winnowing basket and she went and picked him up and opened her coat and held him to her breast, and she suckled him as she went to cook the meal. But first she called to the old woman, “Turn yourself where you sit, old mother, and watch and tell me if you see the new blue of his robe, and I will put the meal on the table.”

  “I will, then, daughter,” called the old dame cheerfully.

  Yet when the rice was cooked and flaked, white and dry as the man loved it, still he did not come. When the cabbage was tender and the woman had even made a bit of sweet and sour sauce to pour upon its heart, as he loved it, he did not come.

  They waited a while and the old woman grew hungry and faint with the smell of the food in her nostrils and she cried out, in a sudden small anger, being so hungry, “Wait no more for that son of mine! The water is leaking out of my mouth and my belly is as empty as a drum and still he is not here!”

  So the mother gave the old woman her bowl then and she fed the children too and even let them eat of the cabbage, only she saved the heart of it for him. She ate also after this, but sparingly for she seemed less zestful in her hunger today, somehow, so there was still much rice left and a good bowlful of the cabbage and this she put carefully away where the wind would catch it and keep it fresh. It would be as good at night as it was now if she heated it again. Then she gave suck to the babe, and he drank his fill and slept, a round, fat, sturdy child, sleeping in the strong sun and brown and red with its heat, and the two children stretched in the shade of the willow tree and slept and the old woman nodded on her bench, and over the whole small hamlet the peace of sleep and the silence of the heat of noonday fell, so that even the beasts stood with drooping, drowsy heads.

  Only the mother did not sleep. She took up her spindle and she sat herself in the shade of the willow tree that cast its shadow on the western part of the threshing-floor and she twisted the thread and wound it. But after a while she could not work. Through the morning she had worked steadily and smoothly, twisting and turning and spinning, but now she could not be still. It was as though some strange anxiety gathered like a power in her body. She had never known the man not to come home for his food. She murmured to herself, “It must be he has gone into the town to game or for something or other.”

  This she had not thought of, but the more she thought upon it the more it seemed true that so he had done. And after a while her cousin-neighbor came out to go to his fields and after a while his wife awoke from where she had sat sleeping by a tree, and she called, “Has your man gone for the day somewhere?”

  The mother answered easily, “Aye, he has gone to the town on some business of his own,” and the cousin searching slowly among his hoes and spades for what he wanted called in his thin voice, “Aye, I saw him gay in his new blue robe and set for town!”

  “Aye,” said the woman.

  Now her heart eased itself somewhat, and she fell to spinning again with more zeal, since the cousin had seen him set for town. He had gone for a day’s pleasure, doubtless, flinging himself off for the day to revenge himself on her. It was what he would do with his new gown and that brass ring of his scrubbed bright and clean and his hair covered with oil. She nursed her anger somewhat at the thought. But her anger was dead, and she could not make it live again, because it was mingled with some strange anxiety still, for all the cousin’s words.

  The afternoon wore on long and hot. The old woman woke and cried that her mouth was dry as bark and the mother rose and fetched her tea to drink, and the children woke and rolled in the dust a while and rose at last to play, and the babe woke and lay merry in his basket, happy with his sleep.

  Still the mother could not rest. If she could have slept she would have, and on any common day she could have dropped easily into sleep even as she worked, since she was so sound and robust that sleep came on her deep and sweet and without her seeking it. But there was some gnawing in her heart today that held her wide awake and as though she listened for some sound that must come.

  She rose at last impatient with her waiting and weary of the empty street that was empty for her so long as she did not see the one she sought, and she took up the babe and set him on her thigh and she took her hoe and went to the field, and she called to the old woman, “I go to weed the corn on the south hillside.” And as she went she thought to herself that it would be easier if she were not at the house, and the hours would pass more quickly if she pushed her body to some hard labor.

  So through the afternoon she worked in the corn field, her face shielded from the sun’s heat with a blue cotton kerchief, and up and down she moved her hoe unceasingly among the green young corn. It was but a small, ragged field, for all of their land which could bear it they put into rice, terracing even the hillsides as high as water could be forced, because rice is a more dainty food than corn and sells for higher price.

  The sun poured down upon the shadeless hill and beat upon her and soon her coat was wet and dark with her sweat. But she would not rest at all except sometimes to suckle the babe when he cried, and then she sat flat on the earth and suckled him and wiped her hot face and stared across the brilliant summer land, seeing nothing. When he was satisfied she put him down again to work once more and she worked until her body ached and her mind was numb and she thought of nothing now except of those weeds falling under the point of her hoe and withering in the dry hot sunshine. At last the sun rested on the edge of the land and the valley fell into sudden shadow. Then she straightened herself and wiped her wet face with her coat and she muttered aloud, “Surely he will be home waiting—I must go to make his food.” And picking up the child from the bed of soft earth where she had laid him she went home.

  But he was not there. When she turned the corner of the house he was not there. The old woman was peering anxiously toward the field, and the two children sat upon the doorstep waiting and weary and they cried out when they saw her and she said bewildered, “Your father—is he not come yet?”

  “He has not come and we are hungry,” cried the boy, and the girl echoed in her broken, childish way, “Not come, and we are hungry!” and sat with her eyes fast shut against the piercing last golden rays of the sun. And the old mother rose and hobbled to the edge of the threshing-floor and called out shrilly to the cousin coming home, “Saw you my son anywhere?”

  But the mothe
r cried out in sudden impatience, “Let be, old mother! Do not tell all he is not come!”

  “Well, but he does not,” said the old woman, peering, troubled.

  But the mother said no more. She fetched cold rice for the children and heated a little water and poured it over the rice for the old woman and found a morsel of some old food for the dog, and while they ate she went down the street, the babe upon her arm, to the wayside inn. There were but few guests there now, and only a scattered one or two on his way home to some near village, for it was the hour when men are in their homes and the day’s work done. If he were there, she thought, he would be sitting at a table nearest the street where he could hear and see whatever passed, or at a table with a guest, for he would not be alone if he could help it, or if there was a game going on, he would be in the middle of it. But although she stared as she came there was no glint of a new blue robe and no clatter of gambling upon a table. She went and looked within the door then, but he was not there. Only the innkeeper stood resting himself after the evening meal and he leaned against the wall by his stove, his face black with the smoke and grease of many days, for in such a blackish trade as his it seemed to him but little use to wash himself, seeing he was black again so soon.

  “Have you seen the father of my children?” the mother called.

  But the innkeeper picked at his teeth with his black fingernail and sucked and called back idly, “He sat here a while in that new blue robe of his this morning and then he went townward for the day.” And smelling some new gossip he cried afresh, “What—has aught happened, goodwife?”

  “Nothing—nothing—” replied the mother in haste. “He had business in the town and it kept him late, I dare swear, and it may be he will spend the night somewhere and come home tomorrow.”

  “And what business?” asked the innkeeper suddenly curious.

  “How can I know, being but a woman?” she answered and turned away.

  But on the way home while her lips called answer back to those who called to her as she passed, she thought of something. When she reached the house she went in and went to that cranny and felt in it. It was empty. Well she knew there had been a precious small store of copper coins there, and a small silver bit, too, because he had sold the rice straw for a good price a day or two ago, being clever at such things, and he brought a good part of the money back. She had taken it from him and counted it and put it into the cranny and there it should be. But it was not there.

  Then she knew indeed that he was gone. It came over her in a daze that he was truly gone. She sat down suddenly there in the earthen house upon the earthen floor and holding the babe in her arms she rocked herself back and forth slowly and in silence. Well, he was gone! Here was she with the three children and the old woman, and he gone!

  The babe began to fret suddenly and without knowing what she did she opened her bosom to him. The two children came in, the girl whimpering and rubbing her eyes, and the old woman came in leaning on her staff and saying over and over, “I do wonder where is my son. Daughter, did my son say where he was? A very strange thing where my son is gone—”

  Then the mother rose and said, “He will be back tomorrow, doubtless, old mother. Lie you down now and sleep. He will be back tomorrow.”

  The old mother listened and echoed, comforted, “Oh, aye, back tomorrow doubtless,” and went to her pallet, feeling through the dim room.

  Then the mother led the two children into the dooryard and washed them as her wont was on a summer’s night before they slept, and she poured a gourdful of water over each of them, rubbing their smooth brown flesh clean with her palm as she poured. But she did not hear what they said, nor did she heed the girl’s moaning of her eyes. Only when they went to the bed and the boy cried, astonished that his father was not come, “And where does my father sleep, then?”—only then did the mother answer out of her daze, “Doubtless in the town, for he will come home tomorrow or in a day or so,” and she added in sudden anger, “Doubtless when that bit of money is gone he will be home again,” and she added again and most bitterly, “And that new blue robe will be filthy and ready for me to wash already, doubtless!”

  And she was somehow glad she could be angry at him, and she held her anger, clinging to it, because it made him seem more near, and she clung to it while she led in the beast and barred the door against the night and she muttered, “I dare swear I shall be just asleep when he comes pounding at the door, even tonight!”

  But in the dark night, in the still, hot night, in the silence of the closed room, her anger went out of her and she was afraid. If he did not come back what would she do, a lone woman and young? … The bed was enormous, empty. She need take no care tonight, she might spread her arms and legs out as she would. He was gone. Suddenly there fell upon her the hottest longing for that man of hers. These six years she had lain against him. Angry she might be with him in the day, but at night she was near to him again and she forgot his idle ways and his childishness. She remembered now how good and fair he was to look upon, not coarse in the mouth and foul of breath as most men are, but a very fair young man to see, and his teeth as white as rice. So she lay longing for him, and all her anger was gone out of her and only longing left.

  When the morning came she rose weary with her sleeplessness, and again she could be hard. When she rose and he did not come and she had turned the beasts out and fed the children and the old woman, she hardened herself and over and over she muttered half aloud, “He will come when his money is gone—very well I know he will come then!”

  When the boy stared at the emptiness of the bed and when he asked astonished, “Where is my father still?” she replied sharply and in a sudden loud voice, “I say he is away a day or two, and if any asks you on the street you are to say he is away a day or so.”

  Nevertheless on that day when the children were off to play here and there she did not go to the fields. No, she set her stool so that she could see through the short single street of the hamlet if any came that way, and while she made answer somehow to the old mother’s prattling she thought to herself that the blue robe was so clear a blue she could see it a long way off and she set herself to spinning, and with every twist she gave to the spindle she looked secretly down the road. And she counted over in her mind the money he had taken and how many days it might last, and it seemed to her it could not last more than six or seven days, except he had those nimble lucky fingers of his to game with and so he might make more and stay a little longer, too, before he must come back. Times there were as the morning wore on when she thought she could not bear the old mother’s prattling voice any more, but she bore it still for the hope of seeing the man come home perhaps.

  When the children wandered home at noon hungry and the boy spied the cabbage bowl set aside for his father and asked for some, she would not let him have it. She cuffed him soundly when he asked again and she answered loudly, “No, it is for your father. If he comes home tonight he will be hungry and want it all for himself.”

  The long still summer’s afternoon wore on, and he did not come, and the sun set in its old way, heavy and full of golden light, and the valley was filled with the light for a little while, and the night came and it was deep and dark and now she refused no more. She set the bowl before the children and she said, “Eat what you will, for it will spoil if it is left until another day, and who knows—” and she dipped up some of the sweet and sour sauce and gave it to the old woman saying, “Eat it, and I will make fresh if he comes tomorrow.”

  “Will he come tomorrow then?” the old woman asked, and the mother answered somberly, “Aye, tomorrow perhaps.”

  That night she laid herself down most sorrowful and afraid upon her bed and this night she said openly to her own heart that none knew if he would ever come back again.

  Nevertheless, there was the hope of the seven days when his money might be gone. One by one the seven days came, and in each one it seemed to her in the midst of her waiting as though the day was come for hi
s return. She had never been a woman to gad about the little hamlet or chatter overmuch with the other women there. But now one after another of these twenty or so came by to see and ask, and they asked where her man was, and they cried, “We are all one house in this hamlet and all somehow related to him and kin,” and at last in her pride the mother made a tale of her own and she answered boldly, from a sudden thought in her head, “He has a friend in a far city, and the friend said there was a place there he could work and the wage is good so that we need not wear ourselves upon the land. If the work is not suited to him he will come home soon, but if it be such work as he thinks fit to him, he will not come home until his master gives him holiday.”

  This she said as calmly as she ever spoke a truth, and the old woman was astounded and she cried, “And why did you not tell me so good a lucky thing, seeing I am his mother?”

  And the mother made a further tale and she answered, “He told me not to speak, old mother, because he said your tongue was as loose in your mouth as any pebble and all the street would know more than he did, and if he did not like it he would not have them know it.”

  “Did he so, then!” cackled the old mother, leaning forward on her staff to peer at her daughter’s face, her old empty jaws hanging, and she said half hurt, “It is true I ever was a good talker, daughter, but not so loose as any pebble!”

  Again and again the mother told the tale and once told she added to it now and then to make it seem more perfect in its truth.

  Now there was one woman who came often past her house, a widow woman who lived in an elder brother’s house, and she had not overmuch to do, being widowed and childless, and she sat all day making little silken flowers upon a shoe she made for herself, and she could ponder long on any little curious thing she heard. So she pondered on this strange thing of a man gone, and one day she thought of something and she ran down the street as fast as she could on her little feet and she cried shrewdly to the mother, “But there has no letter come a long time to this hamlet and I have not heard of any letter coming to that man of yours!”