XIX
But one day he did not come when he said he would. And how did she know he would surely come? Because but three days before he had come secretly and by night, walking across the field paths and not through the village, and he scratched lightly on her door, so she was half afraid to open it, thinking it might be robbers. Even as she was about to call out she heard his voice low and quick and luckily the fowls stirred by her bed where they roosted and hid it from the hearing of the elder son and his wife.
She rose then as fast as she could, fumbling her clothes and feeling for the candle, and when she opened the door softly, for she knew it must be for a secret thing he came at such an hour and in such a way, there he was with two other young men, all dressed in the same way he went dressed these days, in black. They had a great bundle of something tied up in paper and rope and when she opened the door with the light in her hand, her son blew the light out for there was a faint moon, enough to see by, and when she cried out but still softly in her pleasure to see him, he said in a whisper, “Mother, there is something of my own I must put under your bed among the winter garments there. Say nothing of it, for I do not want anyone to know it is there. I will come and fetch it again.”
Her heart misgave her somehow when she heard this and she opened her eyes and said soberly, holding her voice low as his, “Son, it is not an ill thing, I hope—I hope you have not taken something that is not yours.”
But he answered hastily, “No, no, mother, nothing robbed, I swear. It is some sheepskins I had the chance to buy cheap, but my brother will blame me for them for he blames me for everything, and I have nowhere to put them. I bought them very cheap and you shall have one next winter, mother, for a coat—we will all wear good clothes next winter!”
She was mightily pleased then and trusted him when he said they were not robbed and it was a joy to her to share a little secret with this son of hers and she said hastily, “Oh, aye, trust me, son! There be many things in this room that my son and son’s wife do not know.”
Then the two men brought the bundle in and they pushed it silently under the bed, and the fowls cackled and stared and the buffalo woke and began to chew its cud.
But the son would not stay at all, and when the mother saw his haste she wondered but she said, “Be sure I will keep them safe, my son, but ought they not to be aired and sunned against the moth?”
To this he answered carelessly, “It is but for a day or two, for we are moving to a larger place and then I shall have a room of my own and plenty.”
When she heard this talk of much room, there was that thought in her mind she had always of his marriage, and she drew him aside somewhat from the other two and looked at him beseechingly. It was the one thing about him that did not please her, that he was not willing for her to wed him, because she well knew what hot blood was and there was sign in this son of her own heat when she was young, and she knew he must sate it somehow and she grudged the waste. Better if he were wed to some clean maid and she could have her grandsons. Now even in the haste of the moment when he was eager to be gone, and the other two waiting in the shadows by the door, even now she laid her hand on his hand and she said coaxingly, her voice still whispering, “But, son, if you have so much room, then why not let me find a maid? I will find the best pretty maid I can—or if you know one, then tell me and let me ask my cousin’s wife to be the one to make the match. I would not force you, son, if it be the one you like is one that I would like too.”
But the young man shook his long locks from his eyes and looked toward the door, and tried to shift her hand away. But she held him fast and coaxed again, “Why should your good heats be spent on wild weeds here and there, my son, and give me no good grandsons? Your brother’s wife is so cold I think there will never be children on my knees unless you put them there. Aye, you are like your own father, and well I know what he was. Plant your seeds in your own land, my son, and reap the harvests for your own house!”
But the young man laughed silently and tossed his hair back again from those glittering eyes of his and said half wondering, “Old women like you, mother, think of nothing but weddings and births of children, and we—we young ones nowadays have cast away all that. … In three days, mother!”
He pulled himself away then and was gone, walking with the other two across the dimly lighted fields.
But three days passed and he did not come. And three more came and went and yet three more, and the mother grew afraid and wondered if some ill had come upon her son. But now in this last year she had not gone easily to the town and so she waited, peevish with all who
