Free This Proud Heart by Pearl S. Buck

in brackets he had put “(Susan’s limit).” She had gone out this morning and made seven hundred dollars. At least she could soon make seven hundred dollars. But it was not that which now frightened her. It was something else, more large, more limitless, than money could ever be. The frail walls of this house, Mark’s house, which he worked so hard to keep around her—she had pushed them away from her this morning. She had gone beyond them. This room looked small as a closet after the big room where Michael had sat. Ah, but she loved this room! She and Mark had made it to live in together. She got up resolutely. There was no reason why she shouldn’t say to Mark quite plainly, “Darling, since there is something I can do, why shouldn’t I do it?” And then she’d tell him about the money.
    In the kitchen she pondered over bread and milk and an apple for lunch. It was not the money—yes, it was the money—that made it hard to tell Mark. Well, then, if it was only money, it was nothing. No, but it was more than money—much more. And then, alone in the quiet house, everything went away from her except a boy’s head, except an arch in dark shrubbery. She forgot even that she wanted money for her child. Water and stone—what could they do together against the stern green of old yews, druidical even in a rich woman’s garden? She took the kitchen pad and pencil and began to sketch. The doorbell rang sharply across her dreaming, and she hastened to the door. Michael stood there, slender and tall, against a background of a brown horse, held by a groom.
    “I didn’t come except to see your clay and stuff,” he said belligerently. “Where’s the attic?”
    “At the top of the house, of course,” she replied, and led him upstairs.
    Was he going to be a difficult boy? She opened the door of the attic to him doubtfully. He stood looking about.
    “There’s nothing here,” he said.
    “You and I and the clay,” she returned. “What more do you want?”
    She rolled up her sleeves and put on her smock and turned her back and began to mix the clay.
    “That’s a queer baby,” she heard him say.
    “It’s only just born,” she replied.
    He did not speak. When she turned, he had lifted the cloth from Mark’s unfinished head.
    “Why did you make a dead man?” he asked, his voice full of horror.
    “He’s not dead,” she said quickly, “only not finished.”
    “Don’t you ever finish anything?” he asked, still staring.
    “Of course,” she said. “I’m going to finish you. Come—here’s the clay.”
    He covered the head and came over to her and looked at the mass she had mixed upon the table.
    “I don’t like getting my hands mucky,” he said.
    “Then you’ll have to do something else,” she said, “this is mucky work.”
    “I could draw,” he suggested. “I draw a great deal.”
    “What?”
    “Well, horses mostly.”
    She wiped her hands and rummaged among her things and found drawing paper and pastels and tacks. She put the paper up on the wall by the window and handed him the crayons.
    “You can stand there and draw your own horse,” she said.
    He took the crayons and began without a word to draw. And she, seeing how the light fell upon his young head, began quickly to mold and shape her stuff into its likeness.
    It was a difficult likeness to catch, full of fleeting tender angles and unexpected childish turns. The cheeks were childishly round, but the mouth was willful and hard, the mouth of a young man, for all its soft full lips. He did not once look at her, and she worked in silence for nearly an hour. Then he threw down the crayons.
    “I’ve done enough,” he said. “I’ll finish tomorrow.”
    She stopped and came to him.
    “Why, you have only drawn the woods,” she exclaimed. “I thought you were drawing your horse.”
    “I shall be galloping into the woods on my horse,” he explained, “so I drew the woods first, under that bright cloud, because tomorrow the