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?”
And he opened his eyes surprised and said, “I told you, mother, that I cut it when I made the sickle sharp upon the whetting stone and ready to reap the barley soon.”
And she made haste to answer, “Aye, I remember now, you said so.”
As for the children, they could not say how it was, but suddenly there seemed warmth about them and this warmth seemed to come from their mother and good cheer filled them and they began to talk and tell her this and that and the little lad said, “I have a penny that I gained today when we were tossing in the street to see who could gain it, and ever I gain the penny first I am so lucky.”
And the mother looked on him avidly and saw how fair and sound a lad he was and while she wondered at herself because she had not seen it long ago, she answered him with hearty, sudden love, “Good lad to save the penny and not buy sweet stuff and waste it!” But at this the lad grew grave and said, troubled, “But only for today, mother, for tomorrow I had thought to buy the stuff and there is no need to save it for I can gain a penny every day or so,” and he waited for her to refuse him, but she only answered mildly, “Well, and buy it, son, for the penny is your own.”
Then the silent elder lad came forth with what he had to say, and he said, “My mother, I have a curious thing to tell you and it is this. Today when we were in the field, the landlord’s agent and I, he said it was the last year he would come to this hamlet, for he is going out to try destiny in other parts. He said he was aweary of this walking over country roads and he was aweary of these common farmers and their wives, and it was the same thing season after season, and he was going to some city far from here.”
This the mother heard and she paused to hear it, and she sat motionless and staring at the lad through the dim light of the flickering candle she had lit that night and set upon the table. Then when he was finished she waited for an instant and let the words sink in her heart. And they sank in like rain upon a spent and thirsty soil and she cried in
