Page:The Cannery Boat.pdf/270

260 “Now, mother, thank him.”

Sakai’s mother was about fifty and had smooth brows, unlike the woman of to-day. Bowing her head, in which white hairs had begun to show, she kept thanking me for my kindnesses to Sakai, and implored me to remain his friend. This made me very bashful. I blushed scarlet, and could do nothing but keep bowing too, unable to look up into that face, so full of brooding and humility.

One the way home Sakai related his early history. Of how, during his fourth year at the primary school, his mother and he had been left alone through his father’s death and reduced from comfortable circumstances to poverty; of how she had started working in this mill to help him enter the middle school. He had stuck out against going, but the teachers urged it on him, saying it was a pity to leave off at that point, and his mother, her eyes full of tears, tried to persuade him, saying there was no one but him to restore the fortunes of the Sakais, so he finally yielded; but when he saw his mother wearing out her aged body in that unhealthy mill in order to pay his school fees, he could not feel much like school; with her whole month’s wages they just managed to pay the minimum fees; but if he left school it would only sadden his mother, who was straining herself to keep on working, and would shatter her last hopes; so partly as there seemed no way out of it, and partly out of gratitude to her, he kept on at school.

“I’ve never told anyone these things. I’ve never felt it necessary. But you—you’ve always been so decent to me. And then sometimes I’ve