How Much Of These Hills Is Gold

The family is worried because Ma appears sickly. One night, the girls find her outside eating mud and discarded bones. Their father realizes she is pregnant and probably carrying a boy. He is thrilled at the prospect of a son.

Ba is able to bring in some extra money so his pregnant wife can have better food. While her condition slowly improves,

Ma doesn’t offer a bite to Sam or Lucy, as she once would have. Lucy asks if the baby isn’t selfish. After all, she and Sam didn’t make Ma sick. Ma laughs and laughs at the question. Explains, very gently, that boys are expected to raise a fuss (88).

There is now enough cash to buy new dresses for Lucy and Sam and to send them to the local school. They meet their teacher, Mr. Leigh, who claims he is a historian and thinks Lucy is intelligent and gifted. When Sam is caught in a schoolyard fight, the teacher banishes both girls from his school.

Not interested in returning to school, Sam cuts her hair and disguises herself as a boy so she can join her father in the mines. Ma visits Leigh to convince him to take Lucy back into his class. He is impressed by how articulate and civilized Ma is. Lucy thinks, “Ma made of their hard life something orderly. Amid grass and dirt, from wagon beds and hard-used houses, Ma wrangled for them a life of soft voices and clean speech” (108). Leigh agrees and wants to interview Lucy for a chapter in his book. Back at home, Ba reveals where all the money is coming from. He has been prospecting alone in the hills and is finding nuggets of gold.

On Sundays, Lucy is invited to Leigh’s home to converse with his local friends. She learns much about the customs of White people and how they socialize with one another. At these gatherings, she steals a small amount of salt to take home to season the family’s food. When her mother catches her slipping the salt into their food, Lucy dreads punishment for the theft; “Ma’s anger is rarer than Ba’s, but more precise. More liable to hunt out tender spots. Ma knows to pinch Lucy’s earlobe where it’s thinnest, to forbid what Lucy loves most” (117). Surprisingly, Ma isn’t angry. She reasons that the salt was on the table and that Lucy was a guest at Leigh’s home.

A day arrives when Ba takes Lucy with him on a prospecting expedition. They go to a plateau that was created by erosion from human mining activities. Ba says, “I don’t see how you can claim to own a place and treat it so poor, there are methods of getting what you want without tearing at the land like a pack of wild dogs” (121). Lucy finds what she thinks is a worthless piece of quartz, but it contains gold at its center. Ba is pleased with her find.

One night Lucy awakens and needs to use the latrine. As she’s on her way, she spies her parents making love. The sight shocks her, and she says to herself, “Beauty is a weapon, Ma said, and Lucy thinks she may begin to understand. Ma’s power a nighttime power” (131).

Now that they’ve saved up enough gold, the family plans to pack their belongings and head for the coast. They will board a ship to return to China. Ma tells her daughter, “Lucy girl, I care for your father, but luck isn’t something we have. Not in this land. I’ve known that for a long time” (141).

Leigh is disappointed to learn he is losing his prized pupil. On impulse, Lucy grabs a small nugget of gold and runs to his house to show him. She hopes this will explain why the family is leaving. On the way, she trips, falls down a hill, and nearly faints. A shadowy figure approaches and knocks her unconscious. When she recovers, she realizes the gold nugget in her hand is missing.

As the family continues to prepare for their journey, the rainy season sets in. Rivers swell and roads flood, delaying their travel plans. Angry, Ba “rails against the clogged rivers and cut-down trees, the small game overhunted to extinction, the mines that destroyed hillsides till the soil runs like ink” (144). Soon, jackals wander into town, looking for prey. The mines have closed, and unemployed miners begin to roam around like hungry jackals too.

While they wait for the storm to abate, the family’s home is invaded by men looking for food and money. They steal the family’s supplies, beat them, and rob them of their gold. Ba remains hopeful that they can mine more until a local law decrees that gold can only belong to native-born citizens.

A few days later, Ma goes into labor. Ba can’t reach a doctor because their shack is surrounded by water. Both Ma and the baby die. Ba drags his daughters to the water to wash them and himself. Lucy thinks, “The Ba that surfaces at last, wet sluicing off him, is a different man. Lucy won’t quite grasp it for a few weeks more, when the fists come out” (156). Sam cuts off her hair in mourning and becomes the son her father lost.