Good Earth, The - Pearl S. Buck [94]
Nevertheless, for all his fighting Wang Lung had this as his reward: the best of his fields were spared and when the cloud moved on and they could rest themselves, there was still wheat that he could reap and his young rice beds were spared and he was content. Then many of the people ate the roasted bodies of the locusts, but Wang Lung himself would not eat them, for to him they were a filthy thing because of what they had done to his land. But he said nothing when O-lan fried them in oil and when the laborers crunched them between their teeth and the children pulled them apart delicately and tasted them, afraid of their great eyes. But as for himself he would not eat.
Nevertheless, the locusts did this for him. For seven days he thought of nothing but his land, and he was healed of his troubles and his fears, and he said to himself calmly,
"Well, and every man has his troubles and I must make shift to live with mine as I can, and my uncle is older than I and he will die, and three years must pass as they can with my son and I shall not kill myself."
And he reaped his wheat and the rains came and the young green rice was set into the flooded fields and again it was summer.
Chapter 24
ONE DAY after Wang Lung had said to himself that peace was in his house, his eldest son came to him as he returned at noon from the land, and the lad said,
"Father, if I am to be a scholar, there is no more that this old head in the town can teach me."
Wang Lung had dipped from the cauldron in the kitchen a basin of boiling water and into this he dipped a towel and wrung it and holding it steaming against his face he said,
"Well, and how now?"
The lad hesitated and then he went on,
"Well, and if I am to be a scholar, I would like to go to the south to the city and enter a great school where I can learn what is to be learned."
Wang Lung rubbed the towel about his eyes and his ears and with his face all steaming he answered his son sharply, for his body ached with his labor in the fields,
"Well, and what nonsense is this? I say you cannot go and I will not be teased about it, for I say you cannot go. You have learning enough for these parts."
And he dipped the cloth in again and wrung it.
But the young man stood there and stared at his father with hatred and he muttered something and Wang Lung was angry for he could not hear what it was, and he bawled at his son,
"Speak out what you have to say!"
Then the young man flared at the noise of his father's voice and he said,
"Well, and I will, then, for go south I will, and I will not stay in this stupid house and be watched like a child, and in this little town which is no better than a village! I will go out and learn something and see other parts."
Wang Lung looked at his son and he looked at himself, and his son stood there in a pale long robe of silver grey linen, thin and cool for the summer's heat, and on his lip were the first black hairs of his manhood, and his skin was smooth and golden and his hands under his long sleeves were soft and fine as a woman's. Then Wang Lung looked at himself and he was thick and stained with earth and he wore only trousers of blue cotton cloth girt about his knees and his waist and his upper body was naked, and one would have said he was his son's servant rather than his father. And this thought made him scornful of the young man's tall fine looks, and he was brutal and angry and he shouted out,
"Now then, get into the fields and rub a little good earth on yourself lest men take you for a woman, and work a little for the rice you eat!"
And Wang Lung forgot that he had ever had pride in his son's writing and in his cleverness at books, and he flung himself out, stamping his bare feet as he walked and spitting upon the floor coarsely, because the fineness of his son angered him for the moment. And the lad stood and looked at him with hatred, but Wang Lung would not turn back to see what the lad did.
Nevertheless, that night when Wang Lung went into the inner courts and sat beside Lotus as she lay upon the mat