This excerpt explains how Rosie's mother seems like a
different person when she writes poetry under her pen
name, Ume Hanazono.
So Rosie and her father lived for awhile with two women,
her mother and Ume Hanazono. Her mother (Tome
Hayashi by name) kept house, cooked, washed, and,
along with her husband and the Carrascos, the Mexican
family hired for the harvest, did her ample share of
picking tomatoes out in the sweltering fields and boxing
them in tidy strata in the cool packing shed. Ume
Hanazono, who came to life after the dinner dishes were
done, was an earnest, muttering stranger who often
neglected speaking when spoken to and stayed busy at
the parlor table as late as midnight scribbling with pencil
on scratch paper or carefully copying characters on good
paper with her fat, pale green Parker.
-"Seventeen Syllables,"
Hisaye Yamamoto
Read the excerpt from the story, then answer the
question.
Based on this excerpt, which character trait best
describes Rosie's mother? |
forgetful
hardworking
demanding