The Mother

the rice she could spare into the city and the straw she had to spare and she sold it. When she had the silver in her hand she asked for a paper bit that is as good as silver, and with it she went to a letter writer, a strange man in that town she did not know, and he sat in his little booth beside the Confucian temple. She sat down on the little bench near by, and she said, “I have a letter to write for a brother who is working and is not free to go home, and so say what I tell you. He is ill upon his bed, and I write for him.”

Then the old man took out his spectacles and stopped staring at the passersby, and he took a sheet of new paper and he wet his brush upon the block of ink and looked at her and said, “Say on, then, but tell me first the brother’s wife’s name and where her home is and what your name is too.”

Then the mother told him, “It is my brother-in-law who bids me write the letter to his wife and he lives in a city from whence I am but come newly, and my name is no matter,” and she gave her husband’s name for brother and the name of a far city she had known once to be near her girlhood home, and then for her brother’s wife’s name she gave her own name and where her hamlet was and she said, “Here is what he has to tell his wife. Tell her, ‘I am working hard and I have a good place and I have what I like to eat and a kind master, and all I need to do is to fetch his pipe and tea and take his messages to his friends. I have my food and three silver pieces a month besides, and out of my wage I have saved ten pieces that I have changed to a paper bit as good these days as silver. Use them for my mother and yourself and the children.’ ”

Then she sat and waited and the old man wrote slowly and for a long time and at last he said, “Is that all?”

And she said, “No, I have this more to say. Say, ‘I could not come at the new year because my master loves me so he could not spare me, but if I can I will come another year, and if I cannot even so I will send you my wage as I am able once a year, as much as I can spare.’ ”

And again the old man wrote and she said when she had thought a while, “One more thing there is he is to say. Say, ‘Tell my old mother I shall bring red stuff for her third shroud when I come, as good stout stuff as can be bought.’ ”

So the letter was complete and the old man signed the letter and sealed it and set the superscription and he spat upon a stamp and put it on, and said that he would post it in the place he knew. And she paid his fee and went home, and this was the thing she had plotted when she wiped her tears away.

VI

Some seven days after that day a letter carrier who carried letters in a bag upon his shoulder passed by, a new thing in these later days, for in old days there were no such men, and to the folk of this hamlet it was ever a magic miracle that letters could be come by like this, but so they were, nevertheless. And now this man took a letter from his bag and held it and he stared at the mother and he said, “Are you the wife of one surnamed Li?”

Then she knew her letter had come and she said, “I am that one,” and he said, “Then this is yours and it is from your man, wherever he is, for his name is written there.” So he gave her the letter.

Then she made herself cry out and she summoned false joy somehow and she cried to the old woman, “Here is a letter from your son!” And to the children she said, “Here is your father’s letter come!” They could scarcely wait until it was read, and the woman washed herself and put on a clean coat and combed her hair smoothly, and while she did she heard the old mother call out to the cousin’s wife, “My son’s letter is come!” and when she had said it she laughed and fell to coughing and laughing until the cousin’s wife across the way grew frightened at such a turmoil in the weak old body and ran over and rubbed her back and cried in her hearty kind way, “Good mother, do not let it kill you, I pray!” And when the mother came out clean and smiling she said in her same way, “Here be this old crone choking herself because a letter is come!” and the mother made her smile shine out and she said, “So it has and here it is,” and held the letter out for the other one to see.

When she went down the street they all came crowding with her as she went, for the lad followed grinning and saying to all who asked that his father’s letter was come, and the little girl came after him, clinging to his coat, and since it was winter still and little to be done, the idle men and women followed, too, and they all crowded to the letter writer’s house, who was astonished at such a houseful coming in so suddenly. But when he heard what the matter was he took the letter and studied it a while and he turned it this way and that and stared at it, and at last he said gravely and as