For the son’s wife did not, as some maids do, set forth all that she was at once. She was diligent and she was smooth and quick at work and when the work was done she sat and sewed on something for her husband but all she did was done in her own careful way. Now there are not two women in this world who do the same task alike, and this the mother had not known, thinking all did as she did. But no, this son’s wife had her own way of doing all. When she cooked the rice she put too much water in, or so the mother thought, and the rice came out softer than the mother was used or liked to have it. And she told the son’s wife so, but that one shut her pale lips smoothly and said, “But so I ever do it.” And she would not change. Thus it was with everything. This and that about the house she changed to her own liking, not quickly nor in any temper, but in a small, careful, gradual way, so that it gave the mother no handle to lay her anger on. There was another thing. The young wife did not like the smell of beasts at night, and made complaint, but not to the older woman, only to the man, until he set to work that same winter to add a room to the house where they could move the bed in and sleep alone. And the older woman looked on astonished at such new ways. At first she said to the blind maid that she would not be angry with the son’s wife. And indeed it was not easy to be angry quickly, for the young wife did well and worked carefully, so that it was hard to say “this is wrong” or “you did not do that well.” But there were things the mother hated somehow, though most she loathed the softened rice and of it she grumbled often and at last aloud, “I never do feel full and fed with such soft stuff. There is naught to set my teeth down on--this watery stuff, it passes my belly like a wind and does not lie like firm good food.” And when she saw her son’s wife pay no heed to this she went secretly to her son one day where he worked in the field and there she said, “Son, why do you not bid her cook the rice more dry and hard? I thought you used to like it so.” The son stopped his labor then and stayed himself a moment on his hoe and said in his calm way, “I like it as she does it very well.” Then the mother felt her anger rise and she said, “You did not use to like it so and it means you have joined yourself to her instead of me. It is shameful that you like her so and go against your mother.” Then the red came flooding into the young man’s face and he said simply, “Aye, I like her well enough,” and fell to his hoe again.