The Promise: A Novel of China and Burma (Oriental Novels of Pearl S. Buck) by Pearl S. Buck Page B

went away and then let what happened happen. She was restless with secret laughter and gaiety, and she teased her little dog and played pranks on Liu Ma until that old woman lost her temper outright.
    “You are not a child,” the old woman scolded her, “I swear I wish you were though, so that I could beat your bottom. Heaven send you a husband soon, and I shall not care who he is. I have a mind to hunt for that Big Soldier myself and tell him he can have you for nothing and I shall only be glad to have some peace.”
    “You would have no peace,” Mayli laughed. “You would have to come along to take care of me, and you know how we quarrel, he and I.”
    “At least it would be he and I against you, you naughty demon,” the old woman said.
    The truth was that now, slowly, the old woman had begun to grow fond of the tall young soldier, and she had today made up her mind that it would be better indeed if her young mistress married him, for who else but a soldier would marry so free and wild a thing? A decent man wanted a quiet and obedient woman, and would she ever be a good wife to any usual man? Liu Ma could not believe it. So she had made up her mind secretly that when Sheng came next time she would let him know that she had changed and that now she favored him. She waited for him with impatience, never doubting that he would come as he had come every day to ask if there were any word of Mayli.
    He did not come. All that day he did not come, and the old woman grew anxious. “It cannot be that the Big Soldier has gone off to war somewhere?” she asked Mayli in the afternoon of the second day. “He has not stayed away so long as this before.”
    “What do we care if he is gone or not?” Mayli asked, pulling her dog’s ears. “We do not care do we, little dog?”
    “I am used to that long radish,” Liu Ma said unwillingly.
    “You like radishes better than I do, then,” she said, still laughing.
    But Mayli would not acknowledge even to herself that she, too, wondered why Sheng did not come.
    From that day, Mayli spoke no more of Sheng. There was no time indeed, for early the next morning Mayli was summoned by messenger to come to her superior, Pao Chen, to receive her orders.
    When that message came she deemed it time to tell Liu Ma what lay ahead, and so when she had eaten and when the old woman came in to fetch away the bowls to wash, she lit a cigarette and said,
    “Liu Ma, I have something to tell you.”
    “Tell on, then,” the old woman replied. She stood waiting with her hands folded under her apron upon her middle.
    “I am going away,” Mayli said abruptly. “I have received a command from the Ones Above to do a certain work I cannot tell of, but I must do it.”
    Liu Ma did not speak, but her jaw dropped and she stared at Mayli.
    “What day I go is not yet known,” Mayli said, “but that messenger who came this morning brought me the order from my superior and there I must go and see what is wanted of me. As for you, you will stay here until I return and keep the dog and this house. If you are lonely you may find another woman to stay with you.”
    Now Liu Ma was used enough to change in her long life and, hearing whence the commands came, she did not dream of crying out against that, but still she did not like what she heard and because she could not protest the larger she protested the smaller.
    “Why should I want another woman here to be fed and spoken to and noticed all the time? I had rather stay alone with the dog whom I know.”
    “You shall do as you like,” Mayli said with good humor. “All that I ask is that you keep the house for a home for me.”
    “I do not know whether it is well even for me to do that,” the old woman said, wanting to feel peevish. “This is not my native earth and water and how shall I know whether you will come back or not? You may change your wish and here I shall be waiting for you until I die and die, perhaps, with nothing but a dog beside my