Pearl Buck - Sons

But Wang the Merchant was righteous enough in his own eyes, for he told himself and all who came to borrow of him that men must not expect to borrow money or buy grain in times of scarcity at the prices not higher than usual, else what profit can there be to a man who is a merchant? He did no more, therefore, than what was just in his own eyes.

Yet he was wise man enough, and he knew that men do not think of justice in such times and he knew he was very heartily hated, and he knew that Wang the Tiger was of some service to him even in the very fact that he was lord of war. He exerted himself, therefore, and he promised certain very large stores of grain to Wang the Tiger and he lent him a great sum at not very great interest, and not above twenty per cent or so on a silver piece. When they sealed the bargain one day in the tea house, Wang the Landlord, who sat by, sighed heavily and he said,

“My little brother, I wish I were rich as this merchant brother of ours, but the truth is I grow poorer every year. I have no good business such as he has, and nothing but a little money loaned and a little land left out of all my father’s fields. It is a good thing for us all that we have one rich man among us!”

At this Wang the Merchant could not forbear a very sour smile and he said plainly, for he had no grace of tongue nor any wit of courtesy,

“If I have a little it is because I have worked and I have held my sons to the shops and they do not wear silk, and I have only one woman.”

But Wang the Landlord would not have any such plain talk as this, although his temper had dwindled very much too, in these later years, for he knew his brother reproached him because he had sold off a large portion of such land as he had left so that his two sons could go out to the coast as they wished, and he sat and swelled awhile in himself and at last he said loudly, rousing himself,

“Well, and a father must feed his sons, I believe, and I hold my sons a little too precious to make them spend their good young strength at a counter somewhere. If I honor my father’s grandsons, shall I let them starve? It is my duty to feed my children, I believe, but perhaps I do not know my duty when I keep my sons as a lord’s sons should be kept!” He could not say more, for a hoarse, constant cough troubled him these years and it came rumbling out of his bosom now, and racked him. Being speechless awhile, he could only sit swelling and angry, and his eyes were sunken in his fat cheeks, and the red mounted slowly up his thick neck. But Wang the Merchant let a little smile creep upon his own thin and withered cheeks, for he saw his brother understood himself reproved, and no more need be said.

Now when the bargain was signed and sealed, then Wang the Merchant would have it written down, and at this Wang the Tiger shouted out,

“What — are we not brothers?”

And Wang the Merchant said, as though in apology, “It is for my own memory — I have such a feeble memory now-a-days!”

But he held the brush to Wang the Tiger so that he must perforce take it and put his name down. Then Wang the Second said, still smiling,

“Is your seal about you, too?”

Then Wang the Tiger must take out the seal he carried in his girdle that had his name carven on the stone, and he must stamp that too upon the paper before Wang the Merchant would take it and fold it and thrust it carefully into his own girdle bag. And watching him, Wang the Tiger grew angry, even while he had what he wanted, and he swore to himself that he must enlarge his territories somehow and he wished he had not let these years slip by as he had so that once again he was dependent upon this brother.

But for the time Wang the Tiger’s men were saved, and he called for his son to be made ready and for his guardsmen to gather themselves and they would go home. It was now well upon spring and the lands were drying rapidly and everywhere men were eager for new seed to put into their lands, and everywhere men forgot the winter and all the dead and they looked forward hopeful again to the spring.

So also did Wang the Tiger feel himself eager for new things and he told his brothers farewell. Then the two brothers gave him a feast of departure, and after the feast Wang the Tiger went into that place where the tablets of his ancestors were kept, and he lit incense there. He had his son by him as he lit it, and while the dense sweet smoke curled upwards, Wang the Tiger made his obeisances to his father and to his father’s fathers, and he bade his son bow also. Watching the gallant figure of his son thus bowing, Wang the Tiger felt a strong sweet pride rise in him, and it seemed to him that the spirits of those dead gathered close to see so fine a one as this descended from their line, and he felt he had done what he should in his family.

When all was finished and the incense burned to the ashes in the urn, Wang the Tiger mounted his horse, and his son mounted his own horse, and with their guardsmen, they rode back by dry land to their own regions.

IN THE SPRING OF the year when Wang the Tiger’s son was fifteen full years of age the tutor whom Wang the Tiger had hired for his son came to him one day as he walked in his court alone, and he said, “My general, I have taught the young general, your son, all that I can alone, and he needs to go into a school of war where he will have comrades with whom to march and to fight and to practice war.”

It seemed to Wang the Tiger, although he knew this day must come, as though a dozen years had passed as the turn of a hand. He sent for his son to come to him there in the court and he felt suddenly weary and old and he sat down upon a stone seat that was under a juniper tree and waited for his son. When the lad came through the round gate between the courts, walking with his steady somewhat slow step, Wang the Tiger looked at him newly. It was true that the lad was tall and nearly as high as a man, and his face had already taken on rougher curves and he kept his lips folded firmly and well together. It was a man’s face rather than a child’s. And as Wang the Tiger looked at this only son, he remembered with a sort of wonder that once he had been impatient for his son to be grown and a man, and once his babyhood had seemed endless. Now it seemed rather that he had leaped straight out of his babyhood into this new manhood. Then Wang the Tiger sighed and he thought to himself,

“I wish that school were not in the south. I wish he had not to go among those little southerners to learn!” And aloud he said to the tutor who stood pulling at a few short hairs he grew on his upper lip, “And you are sure he had better go to that school?”

The tutor moved his head to signify assent, and Wang the Tiger stared on at his son painfully and at last he asked the lad, “And yourself, my son, you wish to go?”

Now it was very rarely that Wang the Tiger ever asked his son what he liked, because he knew so well what he wanted for his son, but he had a small weak hope that if the boy refused to go he could use it as an excuse. But the boy looked up quickly, for he had been looking at a patch of white lilies that grew there under a juniper tree, and he said,

“If it were so that I could go to another school, I would like that very well.”

But this answer did not please Wang the Tiger at all and he drew down his brows and pulled at his beard and said pettishly,

“Now what school is there to which you could go except a school of war, and what use would stuff out of books be to you, who are to be a lord of war?”

The boy answered diffidently and in a low voice, “There be schools I have heard in these days where they learn how to till land and such things as have to do with the land.”

But Wang the Tiger was astounded at such foolishness, and he had never heard of such a school and he roared suddenly,