Free Sons by Pearl S. Buck Page B

the Street of the Purple Stones and let us talk together of two things.”
    When Wang the Eldest heard his brother say this he wondered to himself, for he knew the land must be talked about but he did not know what else, and so he said,
    “I will surely come, but what other thing is there to talk about?”
    “I have a strange letter from that third brother of ours,” replied Wang the Second. “He makes us an offer for as many sons as we can spare, because he sets out on some great endeavor, and he needs men of his own blood about him, because he has no sons of his own.”
    “Our sons!” repeated Wang the Eldest astounded and his great mouth ajar with his astonishment and his eyes staring at his brother.
    Wang the Second nodded his head. “I do not know what he will do with them,” he said, “but come tomorrow and we will talk.” And he made as though to pass on his way, for he had stopped his brother upon the street as he came back from his grain market.
    But Wang the Eldest could not finish with anything so quickly and he had always time and to spare for anything that came up, and so he said, being in a mood to be merry these days now that he had come into his own,
    “It is easy enough for a man to have sons of his own! We must find him a wife, Brother!”
    And he narrowed his two eyes and made his face sly as though he were about to say a good piece of wit. But Wang the Second seeing this smiled a very little and he said in his wintry way,
    “We are not all so easy with women as you are, Elder Brother!”
    And he walked on as he spoke, for he was not minded to let Wang the Eldest begin upon his loose talk now when they stood there in the street and people passing to and fro and ready to stop and listen to any tale.
    The next morning, therefore, the two brothers met at the tea house and they found a table in a corner where they might look out and see anything there was to be seen but where men could not easily hear what they had to say to each other and there they took their places, and Wang the Eldest sat in the inner seat, which was the higher place and his own by right. Then he shouted for the serving man of that house and when he came Wang the Eldest ordered this and that of food, some sweet hot cakes and some light sorts of salty meat such as men eat in the morning to tempt their stomachs, and a jug of hot wine and some other meats that men eat to send the wine down so that its heat will not rise and they be drunken early in the day, and he ordered on of such things as struck his fancy, for he was a man who loved good food. Wang the Second sat and listened and at last he fidgeted in his seat and was in an agony for he did not know whether or not he would have to pay his share of all this and at last he called out sharply,
    “If all these meats and foods are for me, Brother, then I will not have them, because I am an abstemious man and my appetite is small and especially in the morning.”
    But Wang the Eldest said largely,
    “You are my guest for today and you need not mind for I will pay.”
    So he set his brother at rest, and when the meats were come, Wang the Second did his best to eat all he could, seeing he was a guest, for it was a trick of his he could not keep from, that although he had plenty of money he could not keep from saving all he could and especially if it was something for which he had not paid anything. Where other men gave their old garments and any unwanted thing to servants he could not bear to do it, but must take them secretly to a pawnshop keeper and get a little out of it. So when he was a guest he must needs stuff himself as best he could, although he was a spare man with a lean belly. But he forced himself and ate all he could so that he was not hungry for a day or two afterward, and it was strange for he did not need to do it either.
    Yet so he did this morning and while the brothers ate they did not talk at all but ate on and when they waited for the servant to bring a new dish