The Mother: A Novel Read Free

more easily and without complaining. The mother went into the kitchen again and brought out a steaming bowl of rice for the man. It was a large bowl of coarse blue and white pottery, and it was filled to the brim. Into it the mother had dropped an egg she had saved from the few fowls they kept and now the fresh white of the egg began to harden. When the man worked hard he must have a bit of meat or an egg. However they might quarrel, it was a pleasure to her to see him fed well, and all their quarreling, she thought to herself, was only of the lips. Well she loved to see him eat, even if sometimes she belabored him with her tongue for something. She called now to the old woman, “I have put a new-laid egg into your son’s rice! And he has cabbage, too.”
    The old woman heard this and began instantly and quickly, “Oh, aye—a new-laid egg! I ever did say a new-laid egg—it is the best thing for a young man. It mends the strength—”
    But no one listened. The man ate hastily, being mightily hungered, and in no time he was calling for the mother to fill his bowl again, thumping the table with his empty bowl to hasten her. When it was filled she went and fetched a bowl for herself. But she did not sit down beside the man. She sat upon her low stool in the dooryard and supped her rice with pleasure, for she loved her food as a healthy beast does. Now and again she rose to fetch a bit of cabbage from the man’s bowl, and as she ate she stared into the dark red sky between the two hills. The children came and leaned upon her and held up their mouths to be fed and often the mother put a bit between their lips with her chopsticks. And although they were filled and no longer hungry, and although it was what they had eaten, yet this food from their mother’s bowl seemed better to them than what they had in their own. Even the yellow farmyard dog came near with confidence. He had been sitting in hope under the table, but the man kicked him, and he slunk out and caught deftly the bits of rice the mother threw him once or twice.
    Thrice the mother rose and filled the man’s bowl and he ate to repletion and gave a grunt of satisfaction and then into his empty bowl she poured boiling water and he supped it loudly, rising now and supping as he stood outside the door. When he was through and she had taken his bowl he stood there a while, looking over the countryside as the night covered it. There was a young spring moon in the sky, very small and crystal pale among the stars. He stared at it and fell to singing some soft twisting song as he stood.
    Out of the other few houses in the hamlet men began to come now also. Some shouted to each other of a game they had begun at the inn, and some stood yawning and gaping at their doors. The young husband ceased his singing suddenly and looked sharply across the street. There was only one house where a man worked on while others rested. It was his cousin. That fellow! He would work on even into the night. There he was sitting at his door, his head bent to see the weaving of a basket of some sort he made from willow withes. Well, some men were so, but as for himself—a little game—he turned to speak to the woman and met her hostile knowing look, and meeting it he cursed her silently. If he had worked all day, could he not game a bit at night either? Was he to work and work his life away? But he could not meet that steadfast, angry look upon him. He shook himself petulantly as a child does and he said, “After such a day of work as this—well, I will sleep then! I am too weary to game tonight!”
    He went into the house then and threw himself upon the bed and stretched and yawned. His old mother, sightless in the dusk of the lampless room, called out suddenly, “Has my son gone to bed?”
    “Aye, mother!” he answered angrily. “And what else is there to do in such a little empty place as this—work and sleep—work and sleep—”
    “Yes, yes, work and sleep,” the old woman