"A'Lu, A'Lu, where'd that rascal run off to?"
The weather-beaten woman carried a wooden bucket full of clean water on her shoulder. She looked around for her mischievous son but couldn't see him. She wasn't worried, though; she simply couldn't help complaining.
"He probably ran off somewhere to play."
The woman walking with her replied with a laugh.
She, too, carried a wooden bucket on her shoulder.
"Sigh, he's just like his deadbeat father..." A'Lu's Mother raised a hand to wipe the fine sweat on her forehead. She'd wanted the boy to come help lighten her load, but who knew he'd be just like his father, thinking only of himself and leaving her to worry about him?
"He'll mend his ways once he gets a wife."
"Exactly."
The others' reassurances made A'Lu's Mother feel better.
A faint smile returned to her face.
"Sigh, I hope so."
Someone else asked, "When's your daughter-in-law coming?"
A'Lu's Mother smiled. "In thirty-one days."
This was the biggest event in the family, and she remembered it perfectly! She'd been counting down the days on her fingers.
Everyone who heard was envious.
They all praised A'Lu's Mother for her good fortune.
A'Lu's Mother wore a badly worn old animal-skin hat. She had a square mouth, a broad nose, thick eyebrows, and dark, ruddy skin. She wasn't particularly tall, but her shoulders were broad and her arms sturdy. At first glance, she could have passed for a short, stocky man.
They said she wasn't from the Ten Crows tribe, but from another people. Her cruel father had sold her off to the Ten Crows himself.
Perhaps she was born under an ill star: A'Lu's Mother had seen four husbands die one after another. Now she had only one son, A'Lu, who was thirteen this year. For the