On the other side of the wooden partition James too was awake. It had not taken him long to see that his kinspeople were ridden with trachoma. The eyes even of the children were red. No wonder when they used the same gray towel, the same tin basin! If he were not mistaken, the middle son had tuberculosis. And these were the gentry!
Uncle Tao, James saw, would not like any change. Nevertheless change, James decided, was what he would bring to his ancestral village. He got up out of bed and lit the candles on the table. They stood in brass holders wrought in the shape of the character for long life. He would bring long life to them with health. His heart grew soft when he thought of them, even Uncle Tao. “They’re good,” he thought. “They’re really good people.”
The next morning began with a quarrel between James and Mary. When they came out of their rooms and met in the big central room of the house there was only the eldest daughter-in-law there.
“The outside persons,” she said, meaning the men, “have gone to see to the planting of the winter wheat. They asked me to excuse them to you, and to say they would be home before noon and they beg you to eat and be comfortable. Uncle Tao does not get up early. One of the children is by his door listening and when Uncle Tao begins to rumble the little one will come and tell us. It is like this every morning.”
“Please do not trouble yourselves about us, good aunt,” James said.
“It is no trouble,” she replied. “What will you eat? Our food is poor.”
“Anything,” Mary said, “I’m hungry.” Then she said impulsively, “Don’t treat us as guests. Let us come to the kitchen with you and fetch our own food.”
The kinswoman laughed and did not refuse and so they followed her through the courtyard to the kitchen. The morning was clear and bright, and alas, the sunshine showed all too plainly that the kinswomen were not careful housewives. Mary looked at James with meaning, and James said in a low voice and in English, “Never mind, most germs die with heat.”
There was plenty of heat. The kinswoman opened the wooden lid of the great cauldrons, and steam poured from fragrant millet. The iron ladle was so hot it could not be touched without a cloth, and Mary, when she saw the dark rag offered to her, used her handkerchief instead. Cold salted duck eggs still in the shell were clean enough and salted fish was safe, and so they heaped their bowls and went outdoors in the sun to eat. The house was quiet, for the other kinswomen and the older children had gone to the fields and to the ponds to wash clothes, and only the smallest children played about in the dust.
“Let us go to the fields, too,” Mary said to James.
When they had eaten and washed their bowls they found their kinswoman again, who now was weaving cloth in a back room. They heard the clack-clack of the loom and going there they saw her seated high in the loom, hands and feet both at work in the midst of a mighty dust.
“We are going out on the land,” Mary called to her, and she nodded and took up her work again.
Now it was that the quarrel began. So near were brother and sister that their minds came together often as one, and Mary did not doubt that James felt as she did this morning. She turned her glowing face to him as they walked along the village street. “Jim, let’s come here to live!”
Along the street children stopped to stare at them and women ran to the doorways. It was not a small village and there were crossing narrow alleyways running back to the four-square walls. In all there were perhaps a hundred houses. The center of the main street was cobbled with blocks of marble smoothed by generations of Liang feet and the houses were made of home-dried brick and the roofs were of black unglazed tiles. Here and there was a poorer house of earthen walls under wheat thatch. The children were cheerful and dirty.
James looked at them and saw adenoids and tonsils, reddened eyes and bad diet. “What would we live on, Mary?” he inquired. She came to his own conclusions too quickly and though in the night he had made this same decision, it was an irritation to have her announce it first. He would not agree with her at once, without heed to the necessary difficulties.
“We belong to the Liang family, don’t we?” she retorted. “I suppose we can have our food and our rooms as well as Uncle Tao and the others can.”
“We could not do only with food and shelter,” he said prudently. “I would want to set up a hospital and you I suppose would want to do something about these children. That takes money.”
“It wouldn’t take much,” she said, reluctant to grant that he was right. “I could run the school in an empty room and the people could pay for books and things. It wouldn’t cost anything to get these children clean, at least.”
James did not answer for a moment. They had reached the south gate in the village wall, and passing through it they were in the country. All but the biggest of the children had now gone back and with a trail of not more than a dozen or so, they struck off into the paths that led between the fields. As far as the eye could reach the level land stretched brown and shorn under the brilliant blue sky. The harvests had been cut and only cabbages and onions showed green. The blue of farmers’ garb showed pure and clear, and a flock of white geese, strolling across a newly cut field to pick up lost grain, lent an accent of snow.
“Oh, but it’s beautiful,” Mary sighed. They were speaking in English as they always did now when they were alone. In New York instinctively they had spoken Chinese when they were alone.
“Why don’t you say something, Jim?” she demanded.
She looked at him and saw as she never had before how handsome a man he was. He had put on old clothes this morning, an old pair of brown trousers and a faded red sweater. He looked foreign and young, and yet his profile, strong and smooth, belonged to the landscape.
“I am thinking,” he replied. “I know very well that we have to do something about this, Mary. I felt it coming over me in the night, as you did too, I suppose. It’s a strange thing. We exiles coming home seem to take two directions. Some of us, like Su and Peng and Kang and those fellows and their wives and girls and all that, want to ignore and escape. Then there are those like us. We are stunned, because nothing is like what we thought it was, yet we can’t separate ourselves.”
“Do you suppose Pa knew it was really like this?” she asked.
“Like what?”
“Well—to put the worst of it—dirty,” she said frankly. “Dirty and the children filthy and the people ignorant.”
“I imagine Pa has forgotten all that except in his secret heart,” James replied. “There are dirty people everywhere—plenty of them in New York.”
“Jim, you know what I mean! You know as well as I do that you didn’t expect so many poor, so many dirty, so many ignorant people as we’ve found. We’ve lived well enough, but we haven’t lived among them.”
“I don’t think Pa thought any of this was his business. What makes you think it is ours?”
“Because it is ours,” Mary insisted.
“I am not so sure,” James replied.
Here the quarrel began. While Mary argued, James resisted, until at last in a passion she stood her ground and refused to let him walk another step.
“But why are you so angry with me?” he protested.
“Because you know, and I know that you know, that you are not saying what you really think,” Mary said loudly. A flock of crows that had settled in the field by the road looked up startled and with a great flutter they whirled away.
“You’ve even scared the crows,” James said, laughing.
“Jim!” she cried, stamping her foot in the dust. “Answer me!” But James did not answer, and throwing him a flashing look Mary walked ahead.
Now they reached a wall temple to an earth god, a tiny dwelling scarcely taller than Mary was herself. Within, looking through the opening, they saw the little god and his wife. Upon the low surrounding wall Mary sat down and James sat beside her. Behind this temple were grave mounds.
“Our ancestors, I suppose,” James said. “They put them anywhere i
n the fields, apparently.”
Mary looked at them only for a second and returned to her quarrel. “Jim, if you don’t come to live in the village, I shall come alone.”
He looked grave at this. “My dear, I am sure you would,” he said. “But I am not saying I won’t come. I am only asking how—and perhaps when—and with what. Merely to come here to live among ignorant people might make us ignorant, too. We have to think how we can make our lives here. We don’t want just to bury ourselves—with our ancestors.”
His gravity, his gentleness, subdued her. She sat still for a long moment, curbing her eager thoughts. He was right. There was a world of difference between themselves and these kinfolk, centuries of difference, space and time crowded together into a single generation.
James went on. “I want to talk with Uncle Tao, first of all. We would have to get his help, you know. If he were against us, we could do nothing. He’d have to understand.”
“Do you think he understands anything except his food and his sleep?” Mary demanded.
“Underneath that mountain of flesh I think he understands a great deal,” James said.
The quarrel had faded away like a mist but she could not quite let it go. “As long as I know you are thinking about it,” she said, “as long as I know you really want to come back to our people and not just drift along with those Sus and Pengs and Kangs and people like that—”
“I don’t want to drift,” James said.
“As long as you are thoroughly discontented with everything, as I am,” Mary went on with a hint of laughter.
“I am quite discontented,” James replied.
Mary laughed. “Then let’s enjoy ourselves.” She got up and peered into the tiny temple. “Poor little gods,” she murmured. “They look terrified!”
When they got back at noon Uncle Tao was awake and walking slowly up and down the courtyard, digesting his late breakfast. The harvesting being over, the three meals of working days had been cut to the winter schedule of two, and there was as yet no preparation for the next meal. On the table in the main room were a plate of persimmons and a square sweetmeat dish divided into compartments which held watermelon seeds, pumpkin seeds, and some stale sweets.
“Eh, eh,” Uncle Tao said negligently when James and Mary came in.
“How are you, Uncle Tao?” James asked.
“Busy, busy,” Uncle Tao said, putting his fat hands to his stomach. “Where have you been?”
“Out in the fields,” James replied. “But we saw none of our kinsmen.”
“They went to a distant part of our land,” Uncle Tao said carelessly. “I sent them there to measure seed wheat. These old men of the earth will cheat the landlord every time if they can.”
“How do you decide the rent?” James asked.
“We take half,” Uncle Tao said. Now that he saw there was to be some real conversation, he sat down in his bamboo chair which no one else used. “Half the seed we furnish, half the harvest we get. The land is ours, the oxen are theirs. They have the easy work, we have the hard.”
“How is that, Uncle Tao? You look easy enough sitting here.”
“Ah, you don’t know the truth of our life here,” Uncle Tao said with vigor. Now that he was awake his huge body was responsive to his mood. His large head stood round and bald upon his wide shoulders, and his brown neck rose thick from his unbuttoned collar. He never bothered with buttons. His gray robe was held about him by a wide soft girdle of old silk and from the long sleeves his big hands moved in unison with his talk, gesturing with peculiar grace. These hands were smooth, though dirty, and the knuckles were dimpled.
“All you young people,” he said in a loud voice, as though addressing millions. “You do not understand. You think the old men of earth are all good and honest. Nothing is less true. I tell you these sons of hares who rent our Liang land, they are thieves. They sell the seed wheat and then complain of a poor harvest. They harvest early and sell our part of the harvest. I and my three sons, we trudge everywhere watching and weighing and measuring. Now when the seed is given we must see that it is sown. When it comes up we must judge the harvest month by month. At harvest we must be everywhere at once, lest the grain be cut before we can know how heavy it is. Pity the landlord, pity the landlord!”
Young Wang had come in during this talk, and not daring to break in, he had stood waiting. When Uncle Tao said this his face grew red and the veins on his smooth temples stood out. James saw this and understood it very well. Young Wang belonged to the men of earth. He turned aside to hear him. “What do you want?” he asked.
Young Wang began without noticing Uncle Tao. “Master, I see you are very well off here. How long do you stay?”
“Seven or eight days, if Uncle Tao will allow us,” James said.
“Stay, stay,” Uncle Tao said indulgently.
‘Then it is long enough for me to go and visit my old parents,’ Young Wang said. “I ought to have gone long ago, for I left them in the city after the floods. The water will be gone now and they will be back in their houses, if these have not melted into the water. If so, they will be making new ones. They have a very evil landlord who will not help them, and I must go back to see that he does not compel them to sell the very oxen who must plow the land if all are not to starve.”
James knew well enough that Young Wang said this for Uncle Tao, and he said at once, “Do go, and we will plan to leave here on the eighth morning from now.”
“I go then,” Young Wang said, and without more ado he went.
Uncle Tao had shut his eyes during this interruption and seemed to be asleep. Now he opened them and took up where he left off. “Had it not been for me,” he announced, “the Liang family would have no place on the earth today. Your grandfather, my older brother, was nothing but a scholar. He understood no more than a child about life. Full of good talk he was, and anybody could cheat him by agreeing with him. I suppose your father is the same way.”
“Perhaps,” James said.
“How does he make his real living over there?” Uncle Tao inquired with lively interest. “School teaching cannot fill the stomach. I send him so much of the rent each year, but I suppose it is also not enough.”
“You send him rent?” Mary exclaimed.
“His share,” Uncle Tao said, without looking at her. He never looked at any female creature in the daylight. “Before New Year each year I divide everything in exact proportion, to each his share according to his place in the family. Thus your father gets what my elder son gets in the same generation.”
“Pa never told us that!” Mary exclaimed.
“Eh,” Uncle Tao said. “Now why not?”
“I suppose he didn’t think of it,” James said reasonably. “What he earns at teaching is a good deal more.”
“Is it?” Uncle Tao exclaimed, his eyes lively. “Does he teach the foreigners how to read and write?”
“They know already,” Mary said.
“Not our language,” Uncle Tao replied.
Mary seized upon this change of subject. “Uncle Tao!” she said, firmly.
Uncle Tao looked at the ground. “What now?” he asked.
“Do you believe in reading and writing?”
“I can read and write,” he replied.
“But for other people,” Mary insisted.
“Not for women,” Uncle Tao said firmly. “When a woman gets her belly full of characters there is no room for a child.”
“For men, then,” Mary said, swallowing her pride for the moment.
“It depends upon what men,” Uncle Tao said. “For men like me and my sons, certainly we all read and write. Not too much, you understand, but enough.”
James looked at Mary with warning in his eyes. “Proceed slowly,” these eyes advised her. “Leave it to me,” they said. She rose. “I will go and see if I can help in the kitchen.”
Uncle Tao looked slightly in the direction of her voice. “Very good,” he said, “very right, entirely proper.”
He waited until she was gone and then he looked at James. “You must get this sister married quickly,” he said in a solemn voice. “To allow a female to run hither and thither is tempting the devils. Come, come, what have you done?”
“She wants to teach school,” James said boldly.
“Now you see,” Uncle Tao said triumphantly. “I told you—no reading and writing for women. None of my daughters-in-law can read. I insisted on that. Your father, I remember, would have your mother read. Well, I suppose she runs about everywhere. Never at home, eh? How many children?”
“Four of us.”
“Do you teach school, too?” Uncle Tao asked.
“No, I am a doctor.”
“A doctor!” Uncle Tao exclaimed. “A cutting doctor or a medicine doctor?”
“Cutting,” James said, “although sometimes I treat first.”
“Cutting!” Uncle Tao said darkly. “I don’t believe in it. I have never seen anyone who was cut who lived.”
“Have you ever seen anyone at all who was cut?” James asked, smiling a little.
“No,” Uncle Tao said flatly. “I don’t believe in it.”
He yawned, fell silent for a moment, and then began to rub his belly slowly round and round with his right hand.
“What is it?” James asked.
“Nothing, nothing,” Uncle Tao said. But without opening his eyes he added somewhat anxiously, “There are times when I could think I was a woman about to have a child. Being a man, it is impossible.”
He continued to sit with his eyes closed while he rubbed his belly and James waited.
“Eh, isn’t it?” Uncle Tao said suddenly opening his eyes.
“I think it is impossible,” James said, trying not to laugh.
“Then what is here?”
Without further warning he pulled at his girdle, and jerked open his robe. His enormous belly sat revealed. “Feel this,” he told James.
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