Good Earth, The - Pearl S. Buck [99]
Wang Lung looked about him carefully, and he rose and felt of the stuffs of the curtains in the doorway, and examined the wood of the plain table, and he was pleased, for there was evidence of good living but not of extreme wealth. He did not want a rich daughter-in-law lest she be haughty and disobedient and cry for this and that of food and clothes and turn aside his son's heart from his parents. Then Wang sat down again and waited.
Suddenly there was a heavy step and a stout elderly man entered and Wang Lung rose and bowed and they both bowed, looking secretly at each other, and they liked each other, each respecting the other for what he was, a man of worth and prosperity. Then they seated themselves and they drank of the hot wine which the servant woman poured out for them, and they talked slowly of this and that, of crops and prices and what the price would be for rice this year if the harvest were good. And at last Wang Lung said,
"Well, and I have come for a thing and if it is not your wish, let us talk of other things. But if you have need for a servant in your great market, there is my second son, and a sharp one he is, but if you have no need of him, let us talk of other things."
Then the merchant said with great good humor,
"And so I have such need of a sharp young man, if he reads and writes."
And Wang Lung answered proudly,
"My sons are both good scholars and they can each tell when a letter is wrongly written, and whether the wood or the water radical is right"
"That is well," said Liu. "And let him come when he will and his wages at first are only his food until he learns the business, and then after a year if he do well, he may have a piece of silver at the end of every moon, and at the end of three years three pieces, and after that he is no longer apprentice, but he may rise as he is able in the business. And besides this wage, there is whatever fee he may extract from this buyer and that seller, and this I say nothing about if he is able to get it. And because our two families are united, there is no fee of guaranty I will ask of you for his coming."
Wang Lung rose then, well-pleased, and he laughed and said,
"Now we are friends, and have you no son for my second daughter?"
Then the merchant laughed richly, for he was fat and well-fed, and he said,
"I have a second son of ten whom I have not betrothed yet How old is the girl?"
Wang Lung laughed again and answered,
"She is ten on her next birthday and she is a pretty flower."
Then the two men laughed together and the merchant said,
"Shall we tie ourselves together with a double rope?"
Then Wang Lung said no more, for it was not a thing that could be discussed face to face beyond this. But after he had bowed and gone away well-pleased, he said to himself, "The thing may be done," and he looked at his young daughter when he came home and she was a pretty child and her mother had bound her feet well, so that she moved about with small graceful steps.
But when Wang Lung looked at her thus closely he saw the marks of tears on her cheeks, and her face was a shade too pale and grave for her years, and he drew her to him by her little hand and he said,
"Now why have you wept?"
Then she hung her head and toyed with a button on her coat and said, shy and half-murmuring,
"Because my mother binds a cloth about my feet more tightly every day and I cannot sleep at night."
"Now I have not heard you weep," he said wondering.
"No," she said simply, "and my mother said I was not to weep aloud because you are too kind and weak for pain and you might say to leave me as I am, and then my husband would not love me even as you do not love her."
This she said as simply as a child recites a tale, and Wang Lung was stabbed at hearing this, that O-lan had told the child he did not love her who was the child's mother, and he said quickly,
"Well, and today I have heard of a pretty husband for you, and we will see if Cuckoo can arrange the matter."
Then the child smiled and dropped her head, suddenly a maid and no more a child.