Chinese Fables and Folk Stories/Two Mothers and a Child
TWO MOTHERS AND A CHILD[1]
二母一孩
Woo-Liu-Mai's (sweet smelling flower) husband died when her boy baby was just two days old. She was young—only fifteen—and had loved her husband much; and now she felt very lonely and sad. In her heart she wondered why the gods had taken him away from her and the little baby, who needed him so much; but she was a good woman and patient, and never complained to the heavens or to her friends.
One day she felt that she must talk to somebody about it all. So she went to her mother-in-law and said, "Mother, to-morrow is the New Year Day and we must make merry and buy firecrackers and incense for the temple. We have thirty gods in our house and we worship often, but they do not help us any. They would not keep my husband alive and let us be happy together."
Woo-Liu-Mai's mother-in-law answered, "My child, we can see many people worse off than we are. Look at the poor—and there are many of them. They have no houses to live in. They go around to many market places, begging rice and sweet potatoes. They walk all the time and lose their health trying to get enough food to keep alive. Sometimes they walk from early morning to the dark night and get only one little meal.
"And, daughter, do you not know how many people are frozen and die by the wayside in the cold winter? The New Year brings them two or three days of happiness, then all the rest of the year they are hungry and sad.
"You married my son very young and you are not yet old. You have a good house to live in, plenty of clothes to wear, and a little son, I think you have great blessings from the gods. To-morrow is the New Year Day, and we will buy some pretty red paper to cut in a thousand pieces and hang on our walls, doors, beds, and vases.
"We will make a happy New Year and worship the gods. We will open our door wide and our friends who are happy will come to us and make the New Year call. We will cook the two sweet potatoes, one for you and one-half for me, and the other half for the child. Now see what a happy New Year we shall have."
But on the morning of the New Year early, Woo-Liu-Mai awoke and found her child dead in the bed by her side, and she ran sobbing her great despair, to her mother-in-law.
"We will not hang up the red paper on the door or any place, mother, for our happiness is all dead now. We will have a funeral in three days."
Woo-Liu-Mai's mother then took a piece of blue cloth and nailed it to the door, so that people would know that some one was dead there and would not come near the house for fear of bad luck. And she laid the child on a cloth and covered him with another cloth until the third day, when he would be buried.
When people passed by and saw the blue cloth on the door, they thought the mother-in-law, who was old, must be dead.
The second day Woo-Liu-Mai went to her own mother's home, which was some distance from there, and said, "Mother, my child is dead. Just as the New Year Day came, in the morning early, before the sunrise—so he died."
Woo-Liu-Mai's sisters, cousins, and neighbors came to comfort her, because they were sorry. She was now both a widow and childless. In China it is bad to be a widow, but to be both widowed and childless makes of a woman almost an outcast.
One favorite cousin, Woo-Lau-Chan, a very good woman who loved Woo-Liu-Mai like a sister, had a baby just the age of the one who had died, and when she heard the news, she thought much in her heart of her cousin's great sorrow. "How can my cousin find comfort in life any more?" she said in her mind. "She lost her husband when so young and now she has lost her only child. The first happiness lost—the second happiness lost. A widowed woman has nothing more to expect in life. Oh, I want to do something for her. Clothes, money, bracelets, jewelry, can not comfort her without her child."
Woo-Lau-Chan then dressed herself and took up her sleeping child and ran to the house where the dead baby lay. She was brave and went into the dark empty room, and no one saw her. She never thought or cared about the bad luck it might bring, nor of herself in any way. She thought only of the great sorrow of the dead child's mother.
The still body lay on the floor; she took off its clothes and put them on her own baby, and she waited until he had had milk and slept again; then she laid him on the floor and took the body of the dead child and went out into the great forest, where she left it.
She then went back to her cousin with a happy smiling face and said, "Woo-Liu-Mai, I wish you would come with me to your home."
"No," said Woo-Liu-Mai sadly, "I will go to-morrow and bury my child. I will stay here until then."
"But you can not wait until to-morrow. Come with me now. The gods told me in a dream last night that your child would live again. Kwoh-King may now be crying for milk. Come, go now."
But Woo-Liu-Mai said, "No, it can not be. You tell me what is not true. I go to-morrow to bury my dead."
Just then word came from the mother-in-law, "Your child is alive. Come home."
Woo-Liu-Mai went home and saw the child sitting on the grandmother's lap. And the grandmother said, "Three days your child lay on the floor as if dead. His face is changed, his body is changed. Strange, he seems not like the same baby, but he is alive, alive."
Then they thanked the gods with great joy, and the boy grew and was wise beyond the number of his years.
Woo-Liu-Mai's heart was now filled with great peace, and she no longer complained even in secret against the gods.
Woo-Lau-Chan, the real mother, kept her secret well and no one knew, but in her heart she said, "The time will come, when I must tell my son all. When the years have grown old, Kwoh-King, his children and his children's children will bow in reverence to the ancestors who brought them into life, and it is right that he should know the truth and have his own birth-right."
But in his youth she said, "Not now, for the judgment of youth is unstable and he might forsake Woo-Liu-Mai, and leave her again sorrowful."
When Kwoh-King was seven years old, he began school, and he learned fast. But in time the money was nearly gone and Woo-Liu-Mai was too poor to send him longer to the nearest school.
One of her cousins who was a teacher sent word that he would teach the child, so he was sent to the school where he need not pay. When Kwoh-King was sixteen years old, he finished his studies with great honor. He was still wiser than his years and went to work for the government, soon being given a high state position.
Then his mother, Woo-Lau-Chan, who was also a widow, wrote the whole truth to Kwoh-King and to the government—his father's name, his mother's name, his home, his house—all with great care.
And the two mothers, the mother who raised him and the mother who bore him, were called by the government; and when the Emperor heard this story, they were given a beautiful house, and Kwoh-King lived near and took loving care of them both as long as they lived.
- ↑ This story is about two thousand years old and is found in Chinese historical literature.