The Mother: A Novel by Pearl S. Buck Read Free Book Online

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 like the father, and he would look most beautiful in that bit of flowery stuff. So it seemed to the mother and she felt her heart grow weak in her and she said unwillingly, “How much is that bit then? But still I cannot buy it for we have scarcely enough to feed these children and this old soul and pay the landlord too. We cannot buy such stuffs as rich women put upon their only sons.”
    The old woman looked very doleful at this, and the little girl had slipped from her place and went to peer at the bright cloth, putting her dim eyes near to see it. Only the elder lad ate on, caring nothing, and the man sat idly, singing a little, careless of this bit of stuff for no one but a child.
    Then the pedlar dropped his voice low and coaxing and he held the cloth near the child, but not too near either, careful lest some soil come on it if it were not bought, and he said half whispering, “Such cloth—such strength—such color—I have had many a piece pass through my hands, but never such a piece as this. If I had a son of my own I would have saved it out for him, but I have only a poor barren wife who gives me no child at all, and why should the cloth be wasted on such as she?”
    The old woman listened to this tale and when she heard him say his wife was barren she was vastly diverted and she cried out, “A pity, too, and you so good a man! And why do you not take a little wife, good man, and try again and see what you can do? I ever say a man must try three women before he knows the fault is his—”
    But the mother did not hear. She sat musing and unsure, and her heart grew weaker still, for she looked down at her child and he was so beautiful with this fine new stuff against his soft golden skin and his red cheeks that she yielded and said, “What is your least price, then, for more I cannot pay?”
    Then the pedlar named a sum, and it was not too high and not as high as she had feared, and her heart leaped secretly. But she shook her head and looked grave and named half the sum, as the custom was in bargaining in those parts. This was so little that the pedlar took the cloth back quickly and put it in its place and made to go away again, and then the mother, remembering her fair child, called out a sum a little more, and so haggling back and forth and after many false starts away the pedlar made, he threw down his pack again and pulled forth the bit, agreeing at last to somewhat less than he had asked, and so the mother rose to fetch the money from the cranny in the earthen wall where it was kept.
    Now all this time the man sat idly by, singing, and his high voice made soft and small and stopping sometimes to sup down his hot water that he drank always after he had eaten, and he took no part in this bargain. But the pedlar being a very clever fellow and eager to turn to his account every passing moment, took care to spread out seemingly in carelessness a piece of grass cloth that he had, and it was that cloth made of wild flax