And the woman knew this, too, so that half it angered her and half it was a pain when other women cried, “That man of yours, I do declare his tongue is good as any play, and his quick merry looks—”
And she would answer quietly, “Aye, a very merry man, truly,” and would talk then of other things to hide her pain, because she loved him secretly. And she knew he was never merry when he was with her.
Now it happened that in the new summer time when the mother had borne her fourth child, the most evil quarrel that ever was between the man and woman came to pass. It was on a day in the sixth month of the year and it was early summer and it was such a day in that summer as might set any man to dreaming of new joy, and so that man had dreamed the whole morning long. The air was so full of languor and soft warmth, the leaves and grass so newly green, and the sky so bright and deep a blue that scarcely could he work at all. He could not sleep, either, for that day was too full of life for sleep, and the great heat not yet come. Even the birds made continual songs and chirping and there was a sweet wind, teasing and blowing now this fragrance and that down from the hill where yellow fragrant lilies bloomed and wild wistaria hung in pale purple wreaths. The wind blew against the sky, too, and shifted the great billowing clouds as white as snow, and they floated across the bright sky and set the hills and valley in such vivid light and darkness as are seldom seen, so that now it was bright and now shadowy, and there was no repose in the day. It was a day too merry for work, and very disturbing to the heart of any man.
In the noontime of that bright day it happened that a pedlar of summer stuffs came through the countryside, and he carried on his shoulder a great heap of his stuffs, of every hue and shade, and some were flowered, and as he went he called, “Cloth—good cloth for sale!”
When he came to this house where the man and the woman and the old mother and the little children sat in the shade of their willow tree and ate their noon meal he halted and cried, “Shall I stay, goodwife, and show you my stuffs?”
But the mother called back, “We have no money to buy, unless it be a foot of some common cheap stuff for this new son of mine. We be but poor farmer folk and not able to buy new clothes nor much of any stuffs except such as must be had to keep us from bareness!”
And the old woman, who must always put in her bit, cried in her little old shrill voice, “Aye, it is true what my daughter-in-law says, and the stuffs be very poor these days and washed to shreds in a time or two, and I mind when I was young I wore my grandmother’s coat and it was good till I was married and needing something new but still only for pride’s sake, for the coat was good enough still, but here I be in my second shroud and nearly ready for a third, the stuffs be so poor and weak these days—”
Then the pedlar came near, scenting sale, and he was a man with very pleasant and courteous coaxing ways such as pedlars have, and he humored the mother and had a good kindly word for the old woman, too, and he said to her, “Old mother, here I have a bit of cloth as good as any the ancients had and good enough even for that new grandson you have—goodwife, it is a bit left from a large piece that a rich lady bought in a great village I went through today, and she bought it for her only son. Of her I did ask the honest price seeing she cut from a whole piece, but since there is only this bit left, I will all but give it to you, goodwife, in honor of the fine new son you have there at your breast.”
So saying these words smoothly and as though all in one flowing breath, the pedlar drew from out his pack a very pretty end of cloth, and it was as he said, flowered with great red peonies upon a grass-green ground.
The old woman cried out with pleasure because her dim eyes could see its hues so clear and bright, and the mother loved it when she saw it. She looked down then at the babe upon her breast, naked except for a bit of old rag about its belly, and it was true he was a fat and handsome child, the prettiest of her three, and
