Chinese Literature

“What else can I say? We did have a drought last year. The old man up there in heaven didn’t give us a harvest, so what could we do?”

“Didn’t your mutual-aid team sink wells?”

“We hadn’t joined the team last year, Mother Wang. All through the winter, your daughter and granddaughter kept blaming me. This year, I told them I would not make any decisions for the family. I didn’t run things well, did 1? All the young people are doing their best to go ahead. I cannot catch up with them, but at least I shouldn’t be a stumbling-block in their way, should I, Mother Wang?”

For the first time in thirteen years since her husband’s death, Mother Wang heard the old man speak to her in such friendly tones. She thought, “How nice it would be, if Kuei-chieh’s father were still alive now!”

The old man went even further. “You are well known on Hu-lung Hill for your ability, Mother Wang!” he said.

But Mother Wang just laughed at him: “An old woman like me? What ability have I got? Isn’t it the mutual-aid team in my village that makes life happier for me?”

“Your daughter heard long ago how much better your life had become and wanted to go and live with you, especially when we didn’t have enough to eat this spring! But I said as long as we could manage somehow, she’d better not. You get your crops through labour exchange, don’t you? So they are not easily gotten, either.”

Mother Wang said: “I had no idea that you were short of food this spring. I had eight tow of wheat and about thirty catties of cotton to spare.” Then she added: “Let them come to my place at the Spring Festival. Our mutual-aid team has reared thirteen pigs. We'll kill one at the end of this year and divide it, so they can have some of the meat, too.”

Mother Wang kept a look-out for her daughter while she was talking. Every time there was a noise in the yard, she thought it was Kuei-chieh coming back, and she was getting more impatient to see her all the time. But Kuei-chieh did not appear until it was almost noon, carrying her baby in her arms. Kuei-chieh, more matronly now, looked as neat and tidy as ever. The black jacket and blue trousers she wore were very plain. When she entered the yard, her high spirits shone in her bright, black eyes.

“Oh! LDve been wondering who is here!” she cried out with joy and surprise at the sight of her mother. “Did you lose your way and get here by mistake? Otherwise how come you remember me and my children?” Mother Wang looked at Kuei-chieh’s father-in-law while she said: ‘Tisten to my daughter talking! How lucky I have only one. If she had two or three sisters, I wonder what she would think of me.” And, turning to Kuei-chieh, she added: ‘‘You know we’re all members of a

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