1705034029 That was what the winter’s famine had taken from them. It would have taken them all except that in the great pools lying everywhere, which were left from the flood, there were shrimps, and these they had eaten raw and were still eating, although they were all sick with a dysentery that would not get well. In the last day or so his wife had crawled out and dug a few sprouting dandelions. But there was no fuel and so they also were eaten raw. But the bitterness was good after the tasteless flesh of the raw shrimps. Yes, spring was coming.

1705034030

1705034031 He sat on heavily, looking out over his land. If he had his buffalo back, if he had his plow that they had burned for fuel, he could plow the land. But when he thought of this as he did many times every day, he felt helpless as a leaf tossed upon the flood. The buffalo was gone; gone also his plow and every implement of wood and bamboo, and what other had he? Sometimes in the winter he had felt grateful that at least the flood had not taken all the house as it had so many other houses. But now suddenly it came to him that he could be grateful for nothing, no, not even that he had his life left him and the life of his wife and the two older children. He felt tears come into his eyes slowly as they had not even come when he buried his old mother and saw the earth fall against her flesh, bared by the rags which had comforted him that day. But now he was comforted by nothing. He muttered to himself.

1705034032

1705034033 “I have no seed to plant in the land. There the land lies! I could go and claw it up with my hands if I had the seed and the land would bear. I know my good land. But I have no seed and the land is empty. Yes, even though spring comes, we must still starve!”

1705034034

1705034035 And he looked, hopeless, into the barren spring.

1705034036

1705034037 Notes

1705034038

1705034039 late February, towards the end of the month of February; the latter part of February.

1705034040

1705034041 thin, because he had not had enough to eat all through the winter.

1705034042

1705034043 Did you read any significance into the words sat and one-room of the previous line?

1705034044

1705034045 In this sentence, how did Mrs. Buck avoid repeating the words the coming of spring ?

1705034046

1705034047 it would have been easy enough in other years to know that spring was coming, for he could have pointed to the swelling buds on his willow trees, to the pink-tipped buds of his three peach trees and his six apricot trees, to his wheat fields; but, this year, there were no more trees and the land told nothing.

1705034048

1705034049 swelling buds, one of the many signs of the approach of spring.

1705034050

1705034051 What about pink-tipped buds ?

1705034052

1705034053 in his day, in his lifetime; when he was full of vigor.

1705034054

1705034055 at the height of their time, having reached the period of growth when these fruit trees should be bearing the most fruit.

1705034056

1705034057 “the land lay there cracked and it lay there like clay only newly dried.”

1705034058

1705034059 if he had, but he did not have them.

1705034060

1705034061 He ached . He wanted very much to work, but he lacked the seeds and the implements.

1705034062

1705034063 their store of grain, their stock or supply of grain.

1705034064

1705034065 rafters, the sloping timbers of the roof of a house.

1705034066

1705034067 Was there sense in stripping the coat off one’s back to feed one’s belly? If Farmer Liu did not feed his belly （stomach）, he would starve to death; if he stripped the coat off his back and sold the clothes for money to buy food for his belly, he would freeze to death from the cold. Farmer Liu thought that it was more sensible for him to keep his clothes on and try to get food by some other means, by killing his starving buffalo, for example. So he killed the animal.

1705034068

1705034069 faces set, faces took on a hard expression, became motionless as in death.

1705034070

1705034071 last, utmost; extreme; supreme; greatest.

1705034072

1705034073 down the river . What river must this be that flows by great cities ?

1705034074

1705034075 his own father, his neighbor’s own father.

1705034076

1705034077 hard, hard-hearted; not easily influenced emotionally; unfeeling.

1705034078

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