And for the first time the mother saw a hope before her and she whispered, “But how — but how—” and the cousin’s wife said, “There are simples to be bought if one has the money, strong stuff that kills woman and child sometimes, and always it is harder than a birth, but if you take enough, it will do.”
And the mother said, “Then let it kill me, if it will only kill this thing, and so save my sons and these others the knowledge.”
Then the cousin’s wife looked steadfastly at the mother and she stopped where she was and looked at her, and she said, “Yes, cousin, but will it come about again like this, now that your man is dead?”
Then did the mother swear and she cried in agony, “No, and I will throw myself into the pond and cool myself forever if it comes on me hot again as it did in the summer.”
That night she dug out from the ground a good half of her store of silver and when the chance came she gave it to the cousin’s wife to buy the simples.
On a night when all was bought and the stuff brewed, the cousin’s wife came in the darkness and she whispered to the waiting woman, “Where will you drink it? For it cannot be done in any house, being so bloody a business as it is.”
Then the mother remembered that wayside shrine and how lonely it was with so few wayfarers passing by, and none in the night, and to that wayside shrine the two women went, and the mother drank the brew and she lay down upon the ground, and waited.
Presently in the deep night the stuff seized on her with such gripes as she never dreamed of and she gave herself up to die. And as the agony went on she came at last to forget all except the agony, and she grew dazed with it. Yet in the midst of it she remembered not to scream to ease herself, nor did they dare to light a torch or any little light, lest any might by some strange chance pass and see from even a distance an unaccustomed light in that shrine.
No, the mother must suffer on as best she could. The sweat poured down her body like rain and she was dead to everything except the fearful griping, as though some beast laid hold on her to tear the very vitals from her, and at last it seemed a moment came when they were torn from her indeed, and she gave one cry.
Then the cousin’s wife came forward with a mat she had, and took what was to be taken, and she felt and whispered sadly, “It would have been a boy, too. You are a fortunate mother who have so many sons in you.”
But the mother groaned and said, “There never will be another now.”
Then she lay back and rested on the ground a little and when she could they went back to the house, she leaning on the kindly cousin’s arm and holding back her moans. And when they passed a pond, the cousin threw the roll of matting into it.
For many days thereafter the mother lay ill and weak upon her bed, and the good cousin aided her in what way she could, but she lay ill and half-sick the winter through that year so that to lift a load and carry it to market was a torture and yet she must do it now and then. At last, though, she rose sometimes more easily on a fair day and sat a while in the sun. So spring came on and she grew somewhat better, but still not herself, and often when the cousin brought some dainty dish to coax her she would press her hand to her breast and say, “It seems I cannot swallow. There is something heavy here. My heart hangs here between my breasts so heavy and full I cannot swallow. My heart seems full of pain I cannot weep away. If I could weep once to the end I would be well again.”
So it seemed to her. But she could not weep. All spring she could not weep nor could she work as she was used, and the elder son struggled to do what must be done, and the cousin helped more than he was able. And the mother could not weep or work.
So it was until a certain day came when the barley was bearded, and she sat out in the sun listlessly, her hair not combed that morning she was so weary. Suddenly there was the sound of a step, and when she looked up that landlord’s agent stood. When the elder son saw him he came forward and he said, “Sir, my father is dead now and I stand in his place, for my mother has been ill these many months. I must go with you now to guess the harvest, if you have come for that, for she is not able.”
Then the man, this townsman, this smooth-haired, smooth-lipped man, looked at the mother full and carelessly and well he knew what had befallen her, and she knew he knew and she hung her head in silence. But the man said carelessly, “Come then, lad,” and the two went away and left her there alone.
Now well she knew she had no hope from this man. Nor did she want him any more, her body had been weak so long. But this last sight of him was the last touch she needed. She felt the lump she called her heart melt somehow and the tears rushed to her eyes, and she rose and walked by a little unused path across the land to a rude lonely grave she knew, the grave of some unknown man or woman, so old none knew whose it was now, and she sat there on the grassy mound and waited. And at last she wept.
First her tears came slow and bitter but freely after a while and then she laid her head against the grave and wept in the way that women do when their hearts are too full with sorrow of their life and spilled and running over and they care no more except they must be eased somehow because all of life is too heavy for them. And the sound of her weeping reached the little hamlet even, borne on the winds of spring, and hearing it the mothers in the houses and the wives looked at each other and they said softly, “Let her weep, poor soul, and ease herself. She has not been eased these many months of widowhood. Tell her children to let her weep.” And so they let her weep.
But after long weeping the mother heard a sound, a soft rustling there beside her, and looking up in the twilight, for she had wept until the sun was set, there came her daughter, feeling her way over the rough ground and she cried as she came, “Oh, mother, my cousin’s wife said let you weep until you eased yourself, but are you not eased yet with so much weeping?”
Then was the mother roused. She was roused and she looked at the child and sighed and she sat up and smoothed back her loosened hair and wiped her swollen eyes and rose and the child put out her hand and felt for her mother’s hand, shutting her eyes against the shining evening glow that was rosy where the sun went down, and she said plaintively, “I wish I never had to weep, for when I weep, my tears do burn me so!”
At these few words the mother came to herself, suddenly washed clean. Yes, these few words, spoken at the end of such a day, this small young hand feeling for her, called her back from some despair where she had lived these many months. She was mother again and she looked at her child and coming clear at last from out her daze she cried, “Are your eyes worse, my child?”
And the girl answered, “I think I am as I ever was, except light seems to burn me more, and I do not see your faces clear as once I did, and now my brother grows so tall, I cannot tell if it be you or he who comes, unless I hear you speak.”
Then the mother, leading this child of hers most tenderly, groaned to herself, “Where have I been these many days? Child, I will go tomorrow when dawn comes and buy some balm to make you well as I ever said I would!”
That night it seemed to all of them as though the mother had returned from some far place and was herself again. She put their bowls full of food upon the table and bestirred herself, her face pale and spent but tranquil and full of some wan peace. She looked at each child as though she had not seen him for a year or two. Now she looked at the little boy and she cried, “Son, tomorrow I will wash your coat. I had not seen how black it is and ragged. You are too pretty a lad to go so black as that and I your mother.” And to the elder one she said, “You told me you had a finger cut and sore the other day. Let me see it.” And when she washed his hand clean and put some oil upon the wound, she said, “How did you do it, son?”