Now they both fell silent for a while, and Pansiao stretched her memory and Sheng sat dreaming, forgetting all except his home, and those from whom he had sprung. Who knows the paths of the mind?
… It so happened that at that very moment Ling Sao, too, was thinking of her third son and she lay sleepless upon her bed. She who at night always fell upon her bed and into sleep at the same instant was now uneasy because of new evil that had befallen the house that day.
Ling Tan could not sleep because of it and he lay at her side, still but wakeful. On this day he had heard from his two elder sons, who had heard it in the city where they had gone to sell new radishes, that the war was lost in Burma. From there, how many thousands of miles away, had the evil news come. It came by secret voices in the air, it came by whispers spoken behind hands and into waiting ears, and now many knew that Burma would be lost and because of this, years must pass before they could be free again.
So Ling Tan that day saw his sons come back gloomy from the city, though their baskets were empty. “What are the devils doing now?” he had asked them. In these days he himself went no more to the city, but used what strength he had upon the fields.
“It is not the devils this time but the white men in Burma,” Lao Ta told him, and he sat down on a bench at the door and sighed and let his baskets drop, and took out his little bamboo pipe and stuffed it with a dried weed they used instead of tobacco nowadays.
Now this Lao Ta since he married the woman he found in his trap had grown sleeker and more fat than he had ever been in his lean life and this was because his new wife made him secret dainties and slipped into his bowl all the little best meats she could without being seen. She had made him give up his traps, too, and she had done this by persuading him that he must help his old father more.
“This you should do being so good an elder son,” she had said, and she praised him always and coaxed him with her praise and without any force she had him little by little doing what she wanted.
But indeed this was the woman’s power in the house that she could coax so sweetly and with so much love that it was a pleasure to yield to her. All she did was without any wish for herself, and her love poured out for them all and all loved her. With Jade she never took an elder’s place but she cried out with wonder at Jade’s learning and her prettiness and she worshiped Jade’s three sons and especially the two she had delivered at a single birth. Lao Er she served and praised and let him think he should have been the eldest son with so much wisdom as he had, and Ling Sao she studied how to spare and Ling Tan she spoke to as her master. Only to her own husband, Lao Ta, did she show her one great constant wish that she might have a son before it was too late, but of this too she spoke with only such anxious love for him that he was moved to comfort her instead of blaming her. “Leave off fretting for a child,” he told her often, “I am pleased with you, though you are barren. These are ill times for children anyway.” But still the woman prayed to Kwan-yin night and morning with her beads between her fingers, and still she hoped.
Therefore Lao Ta was cheerful enough these days so that gloom showed on him when he felt it, and all had shared his gloom when he told them what he and his brother had heard that day. They sat late in the evening talking of it and planning what should be done if Burma fell.
“Those white men,” Ling Tan said again and yet again, “I never dreamed it that those white men could fail. Why, their guns — their weapons — how could it be?” And he thought sadly how little worth their promise was if Burma fell.
“Years it will be for us if we are shut off,” Lao Er said sadly and his eyes sought Jade’s.
“Are our children to be brought up as slaves?” Jade cried out. Now Jade had sat silent all this while, and at her sudden cry they all turned to stare at her. At this she burst into tears and ran out from the room.
Ling Tan looked at his second son’s grave face. “What does she mean?” he asked.
“It is her great fear that our children will not know what freedom is,” Lao Er answered. “So far she has been hoping beyond reason that the white men would vanquish the enemy quickly, and she knows that for this Burma is our last hope.”
“She always knows too much,” Ling Sao sighed. “That wife of yours, my son, she knows as much as any man.”
Ling Tan spoke again to Lao Er. “If you want your sons to grow up free then you must leave this house.”
“What?” Ling Sao cried at this. “Am I to let my grandsons go out and be lost like my third son?” And she put her blue apron to her eyes and wept aloud and Lao Er made haste to comfort her.
“Now, my mother,” he said “why will you always reach the end before there is the beginning? Have I said I am taking your grandsons away from you?”
“No,” Ling Sao sobbed, “but if Jade wants to go, you will.”
“How can we take three small children out secretly?” Lao Er urged. “It is only a dream of hers. We will not leave you.”
But Ling Sao would not be comforted, “If Jade is dreaming, then I am afraid,” she said, and though Lao Ta’s wife brought hot tea to soothe her, she would not drink it, and so at last they parted and went to bed, and still none was eased.
Now in bed Ling Sao lay and thought how great a sorrow it would be if there were no children in the house and it would be worse even than if she heard her third son were lost, and then she felt herself wicked to think thus of her own son and she began to yearn for Lao San and soon she fell to weeping softly.
Now Ling Tan heard her weeping and he spoke sharply from his pillow. “Give over weeping, woman, your tears should be dry by now with so much trouble as we have had,” he said.
“Am I to have my life end childless?” she cried out.
“You still think of yourself,” he said heavily. “But you and I, old woman, we are as good as dead. Can we let the little ones grow up as slaves? Jade is right.”
At this Ling Sao wailed afresh and he being very weary in his old age could not be patient with her for once and he reached out his hand and slapped her cheek. “Give over — give over—” he shouted, “lest you make me weak, too.”
At these words, she paused, and, not minding his fierceness, she put her hand and touched his cheek and found it wet. Now she was quiet.
“You, too?” she whispered.
“Be still,” he muttered, but his voice broke her heart.
“My dear old man,” she said and yielded up her will. Let come what must — let come what must.
… And in the hot night Sheng sat frowning and remembering and Pansiao, beside him, remembered, too, and Mayli let them be alone, as though she were not there.
Pansiao put out her hand and Sheng took it and held it.
“Ai, my little sister,” he said sadly, “why are you here? It is worse for you than for me. What can be your end?”
“But it is very lucky for me to have found Mayli and now you,” Pansiao said cheerfully. “It might have been that I was here all alone,” and so she told him how it happened that she had come here by one chance and then another.
“You have been like a leaf on a river,” he said, “borne along without knowing how or why.”
“But now I am quite safe,” she said cosily, “now I am with both of you.”
Over her head those two, Sheng and Mayli, looked at each other, and well they knew what each was thinking. Though they longed to be alone, how could they tell this young and trusting creature to leave them even for a little while? They had not the heart to be so cruel, and so they sat listening while she prattled, and looking at each other over her head.