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?”