Ursula Le Guin - Gifts

“I suppose, being a caller, you could call the mice that are nesting in my storeroom and suggest to them that they go live in the stable?”

Gry thought about it.

“They would have to move the babies,” she said.

“Ah,” said my mother. “I never thought. Out of the question. Besides, there’s the stable cat.”

“You could bring the cat to your storeroom,” Gry said. Her mind moved unpredictably; she saw as the mice saw, as the cat saw, as my mother saw, all at once. Her world was unfathomably complex. She did not defend her opinions, because she held conflicting opinions on almost everything. And yet she was immovable.

“Could you tell about the girl who was kind to the ants?” she asked my mother, timidly, as if it were a great imposition.

“The girl who was kind to the ants,” my mother repeated, as if reciting a title. She closed her eyes.

She had told us that many of her stories came from a book she had had as a child, and that when she told them, she felt as if she were reading from the book. The first time she told us that, Gry asked, “What is a book?”

So my mother read to us from the book that was not there.

Long, long ago, when Cumbelo was King, a widow lived in a village with her four daughters. And they went along well enough till the woman fell ill and couldn’t get over it. So a wise woman came and looked her over and said, “Nothing can cure you but a drink of the water of the Well of the Sea.”

“Oh me, oh me, then I’ll surely die,” says the widow, “for how can I go to that well, sick as I am?”

“Haven’t you four daughters?” says the wise woman.

So the widow begged her eldest daughter to go to the Well of the Sea and fetch a cup of that water. “And you shall have all my love,” she said, “and my best bonnet.”

So the eldest girl went out, and she walked a while, and sat down to rest, and where she sat she saw a huddle of ants trying to drag a dead wasp to their nest. “Ugh, the nasty things,” she said, and crushed them under her heel, and went on. It was a long way to the shore of the sea, but she trudged along and got there, and there was the sea with its great waves bashing and crashing on the sand. “Oh, that’s enough of that!” said the girl, and she dipped her cup into the nearest wave and carried the water home. “Here’s the water, Mother,” says she, and the mother takes and drinks it. Oh, bitter it was, salt and bitter! Tears came to the mother’s eyes. But she thanked the girl and gave her her best bonnet. And the girl went out in the bonnet, and soon enough she caught her a sweetheart.

But the mother grew sicker than ever, so she asked her second daughter to go fetch her water from the Well of the Sea, and if she did she could have her mother’s love and her best lace gown. So the girl went. On the way she sat down to rest, and saw a man plowing with an ox, and saw the yoke was riding wrong, galling a great sore on the ox’s neck. But that was nothing to her. She went on and came to the shore of the sea. There it was with its great waves roaring and boring on the sand. “Oh, that’s enough of that!” says she, and dips the cup in quick, and home she trots. “Here’s the water, Mother, now give me the gown.”

Salt, salt and bitter that water was, so the mother could scarcely swallow it. As soon as she went out in the lace gown the girl found her a sweetheart, but the mother lay as if under the hand of death. She hardly had breath to ask the third girl to go. “The water I drank can’t be the water of the Well of the Sea,” she said, “for it was bitter brine. Go, and you shall have all my love.”

“I don’t care for that, but give me the house over your head and I’ll go,” says the third daughter.

And the mother said she would. So the girl set off with a good will, straight to the seashore, never stopping. Just on the sand dunes she met a grey goose with a broken wing. It came to meet her, dragging its wing. “Get away, stupid thing,” the girl said, and down to the sea she goes, and sees the great waves thundering and blundering on the sand. “Oh, that’s enough of that!” says the girl, and pops her cup in, and back home she goes. And as soon as her mother tasted the bitter cup of salt sea brine, “Now, out you go, Mother,” says the girl, “this is my house now.”

“Will you not let me die in my own bed, child?”

“If you’ll be quick about it,” says the girl. “But hurry up, for the lad next door wants to marry me for my property, and my sisters and I are going to have a grand wedding here in my house.”

So the mother lay dying, weeping salt and bitter tears. The youngest of her daughters came to her softly and said, “Don’t cry, Mother. I’ll go get you a drink of that water.”

“It’s no use, child. It’s too far, you’re too young, I have nothing left to give you, and I must die.”

“Well, I’ll try all the same,” says the girl, and off she goes.

As she walked along she saw some ants by the roadside, trying to carry the bodies of their comrades, struggling along. “Here, that’s easier for me to do,” says the girl, and she scooped them all up in her hand and carried them to their ant hill and set them down there.

She walked along and saw an ox plowing with a yoke that galled it till it bled. “I’ll set that yoke straight,” she said to the plowman, and she made a pad of her apron to go under the yoke, and set it to ride easier on the ox’s neck.

She walked a long way and came at last to the shore, and there on the dunes of sand stood a grey goose with a broken wing. “Ah, poor bird,” says the girl, and she took off her overskirt and tore it up and bound the goose’s wing so it might heal.

Then she went down to the edge of the sea. There the great waves lay shining. She tasted the seawater and it was salt and bitter. Far out over the waters was an island, a mountain on the shining water. “How can I come to the Well of the Sea?” she said. “I can never swim so far.” But she took off her shoes and was walking into the sea to swim, when she heard a cloppity, clop, and over the sand came a great white ox with silver horns. “Come,” says the ox, “climb up, I’ll carry you.” So she climbed on the ox’s back and held its horns, and into the water they went, and the ox swam till they came to the far island.

The rocks of the island were steep as walls and smooth as glass. “How shall I come to the Well of the Sea?” she said. “I can never climb so high.” But she reached up to try to climb the rocks. A grey goose greater than an eagle came flying down to her. “Come,” says the grey goose, “climb up, I’ll carry you.” So she got up between its wings, and it bore her up to the peak of the island. And there was a deep well of clear water. She dipped her cup in it. And the grey goose bore her back across the sea, while the white ox swam after.

But when the grey goose set foot upon the sand, he stood up a man, a tall, fine young man. And the strips of her skirt hung from his right arm.

“I am the baron of the sea,” he said, “and I would marry you.”

“First I must carry the water to my mother,” the girl said.

So he and she both mounted the white ox, and they rode back to the village. Her mother lay there in death’s hand. But she swallowed one drop of the water, and raised her head. Another drop, and she sat up. Another drop, and she stood up. Another drop, and she danced.

“It is the sweetest water of all the world,” she said. Then she and her youngest daughter and the baron of the sea rode away on the white ox to his palace of silver, where he and the girl were married, and the widow danced at the wedding.

“But the ants,” Gry whispered.

“Oh, the ants,” said my mother. “So, were the ants ungrateful? No! For they came to the wedding too, all crawling along as fast as they could go, and they brought with them a golden ring, which had lain a hundred years under the ground in their ant hill, and with that ring the young man and the youngest daughter were married!”