Gifts by Ursula K. Le Guin Read Free Book Online

nasty things,” she said, and crushed them under her heel, and went on. It was a long way to the shore of the sea, but she trudged along and got there, and there was the sea with its great waves bashing and crashing on the sand. “Oh, that’s enough of that!” said the girl, and she dipped her cup into the nearest wave and carried the water home. “Here’s the water, Mother,” says she, and the mother takes and drinks it. Oh, bitter it was, salt and bitter! Tears came to the mothers eyes. But she thanked the girl and gave her her best bonnet. And the girl went out in the bonnet, and soon enough she caught her a sweetheart.
    But the mother grew sicker than ever, so she asked her second daughter to go fetch her water from the Well of the Sea, and if she did she could have her mothers love and her best lace gown. So the girl went. On the way she sat down to rest, and saw a man plowing with an ox, and saw the yoke was riding wrong, galling a great sore on the ox’s neck. But that was nothing to her. She went on and came to the shore of the sea. There it was with its great waves roaring and boring on the sand. “Oh, that’s enough of that!” says she, and dips the cup in quick, and home she trots. “Here’s the water, Mother, now give me the gown.” Salt, salt and bitter that water was, so the mother could scarcely swallow it. As soon as she went out in the lace gown the girl found her a sweetheart, but the mother lay as if under the hand of death. She hardly had breath to ask the third girl to go. “The water I drank can’t be the water of the Well of the Sea,” she said, “for it was bitter brine. Go, and shall have all my love.”
    “I don’t care for that, but give me the house over your head and I’ll go,” says the third daughter.
    And the mother said she would. So the girl set off with a good will, straight to the seashore, never stopping. Just on the sand dunes she met a grey goose with a broken wing. It came to meet her, dragging its wing. “Get away, stupid thing,” the girl said, and down to the sea she goes, and sees the great waves thundering and blundering on the sand. “Oh, that’s enough of that!” says the girl, and pops her cup in, and back home she goes. And as soon as her mother tasted the bitter cup of salt sea brine, “Now, out you go, Mother,” the girl, “this is my house now.”
    “Will you not let me die in my own bed, child?”
    “If you’ll be quick about it,” says the girl. “But hurry up, for the lad next door wants to marry me for my property, and my sisters and I are going to have a grand wedding here in my house.”
    So the mother lay dying, weeping salt and bitter tears. The youngest of her daughters came to her softly and said, “Don’t cry, Mother. I’ll go get you a drink of that water.”
    “It’s no use, child. It’s too far, you’re too young, I have nothing left to give you, and I must die.”
    “Well, I’ll try all the same,” says the girl, and off she goes.
    As she walked along she saw some ants by the roadside, trying to carry the bodies of their comrades, struggling along. “Here, that’s easier for me to do,” says the girl, and she scooped them all up in her hand and carried them to their ant hill and set them down there.
    She walked along and saw an ox plowing with a yoke that galled it till it bled. “I’ll set that yoke straight,” she said to the plowman, and she made a pad of her apron to go under the yoke, and set it to ride easier on the ox’s neck.
    She walked a long way and came at last to the shore, and there on the dunes of sand stood a grey goose with a broken wing. “Ah, poor bird,” says the girl, and she took off her overskirt and tore it up and bound the goose’s wing so it might heal.
    Then she went down to the edge of the sea. There the great waves lay shining. She tasted the seawater and it was salt and bitter. Far out over the waters was an island, a mountain on the shining water. “How can I come to the Well