And to her he said, “Have you had anything to eat?” When she said she had not he took her to the nearest inn, only stopping to lay his trap again, and there he bought some food for her and while she ate he sat thinking. He did not sit with her, for that would have been beneath him and discourtesy to her, but he watched her from the ends of his eyes, as he sat himself elsewhere and he thought, “Has not Heaven sent her? She fell into my trap.”
When she had finished eating, therefore, he told her to follow him. Then with much mustering of his courage, and he could not have done it had she not been so piteous and so anxious to please him for his kindness, he said to her:
“My own father’s house is not far from here, and a day’s walking will bring us to it and my mother is a good woman, so let me take you there.”
This he said to test her to see whether she would be willing. And why would she not be willing, who had no roof to creep under and no man to feed her? She said with great thankfulness:
“How can I refuse one into whose hand Heaven has put me?”
So without a word more he walked ahead of her toward his father’s house and she followed behind him, carrying her bundle of goods tied into a coarse blue cloth.
For many miles he said nothing to her, and when he did not speak she did not, but he heard her footsteps behind him in the dust. And as he went he thought, “If it is well, I will speak again before I reach my mother’s. I must give a reason for bringing home a woman.”
So when they were within sight of the village, he gathered all his courage together again and he turned and said to that woman, though his mouth went dry so to speak for himself:
“I have lost my wife and my two children. You have lost your husband. Are we not two parts? If we come together would we not be a whole?”
By the time the woman was so weary and so anxious to find a home for herself that she could scarcely have refused any man and so she said, “If you will have me!”
Lao Ta nodded and without more talk he went on, and so they came to his father’s house.
Now there could scarcely have been a worse moment for them to come than the one they had chanced upon. For early that morning Jade’s child had begun to come, and her labor had gone through the whole day and the child for some reason clung to the womb and would not come out. Ling Sao was beside herself, and Lao Er was frantic, and all the women of the village had gathered there each to tell what she would do. All had been done and still the child would not be born, and Jade’s courage was beginning to fail.
“This child is too big—” she whispered, and in her own heart she began to doubt whether or not she could bring it to birth.
So when at this moment Ling Sao beheld her eldest son come in with a strange woman, she had no time for what he wanted to say. Her temper was at its worst with what she had been through and the evil outlook ahead, yet the eldest son, being too simple to think of any except himself, blurted out as soon as he saw his mother:
“Mother, this woman is your new daughter-in-law.”
“Do not speak of daughters-in-law to me,” she cried. “I have eaten nothing but bitterness with them. Here is this Jade who cannot bear her child, and now what shall we do? There is nothing but bitterness in children and children’s children, and I am never to have any peace.”
Now this new woman had lived long enough to know what was best for herself, and the moment she came to the village she had liked it. Then she saw that this was a good farm and a fair farmhouse, and at her age how could she look for anything better? Her luck had put her in that trap and she must make the most of it, and thank the times for giving her a chance for a man as strong as this one, though he was ten years younger than she, at least. Well, then, she must try the more for him. So, weary as she was, she put down her bundle and smoothed back her hair, and she said in a soft and pleasant voice:
“I am too bold and I know my little worth, but still I have often delivered women of their children and it may be that I can be of use here. Else why did Heaven send me to a house I have never seen before, and did not Heaven put my feet on the wrong road for some purpose, so that I am miles from where I thought I was, and fell into your son’s trap and could not climb out until he saved me?”
“Come with me,” Ling Sao cried, not understanding any of this except what she needed. She took that woman by the wrist and pulled her to Jade’s bedside, and she said to Jade, “Here is one sent by Heaven to help you, child, and let us all take heart.”
Then that woman pushed up her sleeves and she smiled at Jade and she put up Jade’s garments and she began to knead her belly and her loins. Whether a new face gave Jade courage, or whether the kneading eased her for a moment, it was sure she felt better and she took heart and tried again. And that woman had great patience and she coaxed Jade with her words, and kept on at her work, and all waited to see what would happen.
“The child has moved a little,” Jade gasped at last, and fell into fresh agony. At this the woman thrust her hand and arm up into Jade’s body and cried out:
“I feel a boy’s head!”
At that all took new courage, and Ling Sao urged Jade that since it was a boy she must go on. Now the woman pulled gently with her hand and Jade pushed, and that unwilling child had nothing for it but to yield, though hardly. So after about two hours more, he was born. Then Ling Sao seized the child.
But the woman looked at Jade and cried, “There is another one.”
And then she fell hard to work again and in a few moments more another child was born upon a great gush of Jade’s bright blood.
“O Heaven’s mercy!” Ling Sao cried, and reached out her arm for this second boy. And such boys they were that they both cried as lustily as though they had been born a week.
Who now could doubt that Heaven had sent this woman?
“You must eat and rest and calm yourself, and be sure I will thank you in any way you want,” Ling Sao said.
She gave the children to those women who waited, and as proud as though she had done the thing herself, she went into the kitchen to make ready for Jade the red sugar melted into boiling water that would renew her strength, and she called her second son to take it in and tell Jade how well she had done.
But while she did this she thought secretly, “This woman — she is too old for my son, and yet how can I refuse her now? But how will it be to me to have so old a daughter-in-law?”
And when Lao Er had gone with the sugar drink, she called her husband to her to talk with him so that she could know how she was to behave to this woman, whether as daughter-in-law or as a stranger. Now Lao Ta had already told his father what he wanted and so Ling Tan was ready, and he knew his mind.
“Heaven plays us tricks these days,” Ling Sao said, feeding the fire as she talked, to heat food for the woman. “I swear I could never think that I would get women like this out of the air for my sons. These are no proper times.”
“Nevertheless, how can we refuse our eldest son now?” he asked her.
At this she saw that he was willing, and so she only put one barrier up. “If she is too old for childbearing then he cannot have her. What is the use of a woman in the house if she cannot have a child?”
“She has been useful today,” he said.
“But today is not every day,” she said. “Not once in the life time of a few is such a day as this.”
And she would have her way, and so when she took food to the woman she asked her age in all courtesy as one must ask a stranger, and that woman said half sadly, “Well I know I am too old. I am thirty-six.”
And Ling Sao thought to herself, though she liked the woman’s honesty, that indeed it was very old, but still the woman might bear three or four children in time if she were fertile. So she put another courteous question, and she said: