Good Earth, The - Pearl S. Buck [113]
NOW AS the winter wore away and the waters began to recede so that Wang Lung could walk abroad over his land it happened one day that his eldest son followed him and said to him proudly,
"Well, and there will soon be another mouth in the house and it will be the mouth of your grandson."
Then Wang Lung, when he heard this, turned himself about and he laughed and he rubbed his hands together and said,
"Here is a good day, indeed!"
And he laughed again, and went to find Ching and tell him to go to the town to buy fish and good food and he sent it in to his son's wife and said,
"Eat, make strong the body of my grandson."
Then all during the spring Wang Lung had the knowledge of this birth to come for his comfort. And when he was busy about other things he thought of it, and when he was troubled he thought of it and it was a comfort to him.
And as the spring grew into summer, the people who had gone away from the floods came back again, one by one and group by group, spent and weary with the winter and glad to be back, although where their houses had been there was nothing now but the yellow mud of the water-soaked land. But out of this mud houses could be fashioned again, and mats bought to roof them, and many came to Wang Lung to borrow money, and he loaned it at high interest, seeing how greatly it was in demand, and the security he always said must be land. And with the money they borrowed they planted seed upon the earth that was fat with the richness of the dried water, and when they needed oxen and seed and plows and when they could borrow no more money, some sold land and part of their fields that they might plant what was left. And of these Wang Lung bought land and much land, and he bought it cheaply, since money men must have.
But there were some who would not sell their land, and when they had nothing wherewith to buy seed and plow and oxen, they sold their daughters, and there were those who came to Wang Lung to sell, because it was known he was rich and powerful and a man of good heart.
And he, thinking constantly of the child to come and of others to come from his sons when they were all wed, bought five slaves, two about twelve years of age with big feet and strong bodies, and two younger to wait upon them all and fetch and carry, and one to wait on the person of Lotus, for Cuckoo grew old and since the second girl was gone there had been none other to work in the house. And the five he bought in one day, for he was a man rich enough to do quickly what he decided upon.
Then one day many days later a man came bearing a small delicate maid of seven years or so, wanting to sell her, and Wang Lung said he would not have her at first, for she was so small and weak. But Lotus saw her and fancied her and she said pettishly,
"Now this one I will have because she is so pretty and the other one is coarse and smells like goat's meat and I do not like her."
And Wang Lung looked at the child and saw her pretty frightened eyes and her piteous thinness and he said partly to humor Lotus and partly that he might see the child fed and fattened,
"Well, and let it be so if you wish it."
So he bought the child for twenty pieces of silver and she lived in the inner courts and slept on the foot of the bed where Lotus slept.
NOW IT SEEMED to Wang Lung that he could have peace in his house. When the waters receded and summer came and the land was to be planted to good seed, he walked hither and thither and looked at every piece and he discussed with Ching the quality of each piece of soil and what change there should be of crops for the fertility of the land. And whenever he went he took with him his youngest son, who was to be on the land after him, that the lad might learn. And Wang Lung never looked to see how the lad listened and whether he listened or not, for the lad walked with his head downcast and he had