North of Boston

    I DIDN'T make you know how glad I was
    To have you come and camp here on our land.
    I promised myself to get down some day
    And see the way you lived, but I don't know!
    With a houseful of hungry men to feed
    I guess you'd find.... It seems to me
    I can't express my feelings any more
    Than I can raise my voice or want to lift
    My hand (oh, I can lift it when I have to).
    Did ever you feel so? I hope you never.
    It's got so I don't even know for sure
    Whether I am glad, sorry, or anything.
    There's nothing but a voice-like left inside
    That seems to tell me how I ought to feel,
    And would feel if I wasn't all gone wrong.
    You take the lake. I look and look at it.
    I see it's a fair, pretty sheet of water.
    I stand and make myself repeat out loud
    The advantages it has, so long and narrow,
    Like a deep piece of some old running river
    Cut short off at both ends. It lies five miles
    Straight away through the mountain notch
    From the sink window where I wash the plates,
    And all our storms come up toward the house,
    Drawing the slow waves whiter and whiter and whiter.
    It took my mind off doughnuts and soda biscuit
    To step outdoors and take the water dazzle
    A sunny morning, or take the rising wind
    About my face and body and through my wrapper,
    When a storm threatened from the Dragon's Den,
    And a cold chill shivered across the lake.
    I see it's a fair, pretty sheet of water,
    Our Willoughby! How did you hear of it?
    I expect, though, everyone's heard of it.
    In a book about ferns? Listen to that!
    You let things more like feathers regulate
    Your going and coming. And you like it here?
    I can see how you might. But I don't know!
    It would be different if more people came,
    For then there would be business. As it is,
    The cottages Len built, sometimes we rent them,
    Sometimes we don't. We've a good piece of shore
    That ought to be worth something, and may yet.
    But I don't count on it as much as Len.
    He looks on the bright side of everything,
    Including me. He thinks I'll be all right
    With doctoring. But it's not medicine—
    Lowe is the only doctor's dared to say so—
    It's rest I want—there, I have said it out—
    From cooking meals for hungry hired men
    And washing dishes after them—from doing
    Things over and over that just won't stay done.
    By good rights I ought not to have so much
    Put on me, but there seems no other way.
    Len says one steady pull more ought to do it.
    He says the best way out is always through.
    And I agree to that, or in so far
    As that I can see no way out but through—
    Leastways for me—and then they'll be convinced.
    It's not that Len don't want the best for me.
    It was his plan our moving over in
    Beside the lake from where that day I showed you
    We used to live—ten miles from anywhere.
    We didn't change without some sacrifice,
    But Len went at it to make up the loss.
    His work's a man's, of course, from sun to sun,
    But he works when he works as hard as I do—
    Though there's small profit in comparisons.
    (Women and men will make them all the same.)
    But work ain't all. Len undertakes too much.
    He's into everything in town. This year
    It's highways, and he's got too many men
    Around him to look after that make waste.
    They take advantage of him shamefully,
    And proud, too, of themselves for doing so.
    We have four here to board, great good-for-nothings,
    Sprawling about the kitchen with their talk
    While I fry their bacon. Much they care!
    No more put out in what they do or say
    Than if I wasn't in the room at all.
    Coming and going all the time, they are:
    I don't learn what their names are, let alone
    Their characters, or whether they are safe
    To have inside the house with doors unlocked.
    I'm not afraid of them, though, if they're not
    Afraid of me. There's two can play at that.
    I have my fancies: it runs in the family.
    My father's brother wasn't right. They kept him
    Locked up for years back there at the old farm.
    I've been away once—yes, I've been away.
    The State Asylum. I was prejudiced;
    I wouldn't have sent anyone of mine there;
    You know the old idea—the only asylum
    Was the poorhouse, and those who could afford,
    Rather than send their folks to such a place,
    Kept them at home; and it does seem more human.
    But it's not so: the place is the asylum.
    There they have every means proper to do with,
    And you aren't darkening other people's lives—
    Worse than no good to them, and they no good
    To you in your condition; you can't know
    Affection or the want of it in that state.
    I've heard too much of the old-fashioned way.
    My father's brother, he went mad quite young.
    Some thought he had been bitten by a dog,
    Because his violence took on the form
    Of carrying his pillow in his teeth;
    But it's more likely he was crossed in love,
    Or so the story goes. It was some girl.
    Anyway all he talked about was love.
    They soon saw he would do someone a mischief
    If he wa'n't kept strict watch of, and it ended
    In father's building him a sort of cage,
    Or room within a room, of hickory poles,
    Like stanchions in the barn, from floor to ceiling,—
    A narrow passage all the way around.
    Anything they put in for furniture
    He'd tear to pieces, even a bed to lie on.
    So they made the place comfortable with straw,
    Like a beast's stall, to ease their consciences.
    Of course they had to feed him without dishes.
    They tried to keep him clothed, but he paraded
    With his clothes on his arm—all of his clothes.
    Cruel—it sounds. I 'spose they did the best
    They knew. And just when he was at the height,
    Father and mother married, and mother came,
    A bride, to help take care of such a creature,
    And accommodate her young life to his.
    That was what marrying father meant to her.
    She had to lie and hear love things made dreadful
    By his shouts in the night. He'd shout and shout
    Until the strength was shouted out of him,
    And his voice died down slowly from exhaustion.
    He'd pull his bars apart like bow and bow-string,
    And let them go and make them twang until
    His hands had worn them smooth as any ox-bow.
    And then he'd crow as if he thought that child's play—
    The only fun he had. I've heard them say, though,
    They found a way to put a stop to it.
    He was before my time—I never saw him;
    But the pen stayed exactly as it was
    There in the upper chamber in the ell,
    A sort of catch-all full of attic clutter.
    I often think of the smooth hickory bars.
    It got so I would say—you know, half fooling—
    "It's time I took my turn upstairs in jail"—
    Just as you will till it becomes a habit.
    No wonder I was glad to get away.
    Mind you, I waited till Len said the word.
    I didn't want the blame if things went wrong.
    I was glad though, no end, when we moved out,
    And I looked to be happy, and I was,
    As I said, for a while—but I don't know!
    Somehow the change wore out like a prescription.
    And there's more to it than just window-views
    And living by a lake. I'm past such help—
    Unless Len took the notion, which he won't,
    And I won't ask him—it's not sure enough.
    I 'spose I've got to go the road I'm going:
    Other folks have to, and why shouldn't I?
    I almost think if I could do like you,
    Drop everything and live out on the ground—
    But it might be, come night, I shouldn't like it,
    Or a long rain. I should soon get enough,
    And be glad of a good roof overhead.
    I've lain awake thinking of you, I'll warrant,
    More than you have yourself, some of these nights.
    The wonder was the tents weren't snatched away
    From over you as you lay in your beds.
    I haven't courage for a risk like that.
    Bless you, of course, you're keeping me from work,
    But the thing of it is, I need to be kept.
    There's work enough to do—there's always that;
    But behind's behind. The worst that you can do
    Is set me back a little more behind.
    I sha'n't catch up in this world, anyway.
    I'd rather you'd not go unless you must.

    MY long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
    Toward heaven still,
    And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
    Beside it, and there may be two or three
    Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.
    But I am done with apple-picking now.
    Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
    The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
    I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight
    I got from looking through a pane of glass
    I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough
    And held against the world of hoary grass.
    It melted, and I let it fall and break.
    But I was well
    Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
    And I could tell
    What form my dreaming was about to take.
    Magnified apples appear and disappear,
    Stem end and blossom end,
    And every fleck of russet showing clear.
    My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
    It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
    I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.
    And I keep hearing from the cellar bin
    The rumbling sound
    Of load on load of apples coming in.
    For I have had too much
    Of apple-picking: I am overtired
    Of the great harvest I myself desired.
    There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,
    Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.
    For all
    That struck the earth,
    No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,
    Went surely to the cider-apple heap
    As of no worth.
    One can see what will trouble
    This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
    Were he not gone,
    The woodchuck could say whether it's like his
    Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
    Or just some human sleep.

    THERE were three in the meadow by the brook
    Gathering up windrows, piling cocks of hay,
    With an eye always lifted toward the west
    Where an irregular sun-bordered cloud
    Darkly advanced with a perpetual dagger
    Flickering across its bosom. Suddenly
    One helper, thrusting pitchfork in the ground,
    Marched himself off the field and home. One stayed.
    The town-bred farmer failed to understand.
    "What is there wrong?"
    "Something you just now said."
    "What did I say?"
    "About our taking pains."
    "To cock the hay?—because it's going to shower?
    I said that more than half an hour ago.
    I said it to myself as much as you."
    "You didn't know. But James is one big fool.
    He thought you meant to find fault with his work.
    That's what the average farmer would have meant.
    James would take time, of course, to chew it over
    Before he acted: he's just got round to act."
    "He is a fool if that's the way he takes me."
    "Don't let it bother you. You've found out something.
    The hand that knows his business won't be told
    To do work better or faster—those two things.
    I'm as particular as anyone:
    Most likely I'd have served you just the same.
    But I know you don't understand our ways.
    You were just talking what was in your mind,
    What was in all our minds, and you weren't hinting.
    Tell you a story of what happened once:
    I was up here in Salem at a man's
    Named Sanders with a gang of four or five
    Doing the haying. No one liked the boss.
    He was one of the kind sports call a spider,
    All wiry arms and legs that spread out wavy
    From a humped body nigh as big's a biscuit.
    But work! that man could work, especially
    If by so doing he could get more work
    Out of his hired help. I'm not denying
    He was hard on himself. I couldn't find
    That he kept any hours—not for himself.
    Daylight and lantern-light were one to him:
    I've heard him pounding in the barn all night.
    But what he liked was someone to encourage.
    Them that he couldn't lead he'd get behind
    And drive, the way you can, you know, in mowing—
    Keep at their heels and threaten to mow their legs off.
    I'd seen about enough of his bulling tricks
    (We call that bulling). I'd been watching him.
    So when he paired off with me in the hayfield
    To load the load, thinks I, Look out for trouble.
    I built the load and topped it off; old Sanders
    Combed it down with a rake and says, 'O. K.'
    Everything went well till we reached the barn
    With a big catch to empty in a bay.
    You understand that meant the easy job
    For the man up on top of throwing down
    The hay and rolling it off wholesale,
    Where on a mow it would have been slow lifting.
    You wouldn't think a fellow'd need much urging
    Under these circumstances, would you now?
    But the old fool seizes his fork in both hands,
    And looking up bewhiskered out of the pit,
    Shouts like an army captain, 'Let her come!'
    Thinks I, D'ye mean it? 'What was that you said?'
    I asked out loud, so's there'd be no mistake,
    'Did you say, Let her come?' 'Yes, let her come.'
    He said it over, but he said it softer.
    Never you say a thing like that to a man,
    Not if he values what he is. God, I'd as soon
    Murdered him as left out his middle name.
    I'd built the load and knew right where to find it.
    Two or three forkfuls I picked lightly round for
    Like meditating, and then I just dug in
    And dumped the rackful on him in ten lots.
    I looked over the side once in the dust
    And caught sight of him treading-water-like,
    Keeping his head above. 'Damn ye,' I says,
    'That gets ye!' He squeaked like a squeezed rat.
    That was the last I saw or heard of him.
    I cleaned the rack and drove out to cool off.
    As I sat mopping hayseed from my neck,
    And sort of waiting to be asked about it,
    One of the boys sings out, 'Where's the old man?'
    'I left him in the barn under the hay.
    If ye want him, ye can go and dig him out.'
    They realized from the way I swobbed my neck
    More than was needed something must be up.
    They headed for the barn; I stayed where I was.
    They told me afterward. First they forked hay,
    A lot of it, out into the barn floor.
    Nothing! They listened for him. Not a rustle.
    I guess they thought I'd spiked him in the temple
    Before I buried him, or I couldn't have managed.
    They excavated more. 'Go keep his wife
    Out of the barn.' Someone looked in a window,
    And curse me if he wasn't in the kitchen
    Slumped way down in a chair, with both his feet
    Stuck in the oven, the hottest day that summer.
    He looked so clean disgusted from behind
    There was no one that dared to stir him up,
    Or let him know that he was being looked at.
    Apparently I hadn't buried him
    (I may have knocked him down); but my just trying
    To bury him had hurt his dignity.
    He had gone to the house so's not to meet me.
    He kept away from us all afternoon.
    We tended to his hay. We saw him out
    After a while picking peas in his garden:
    He couldn't keep away from doing something."
    "Weren't you relieved to find he wasn't dead?"
    "No! and yet I don't know—it's hard to say.
    I went about to kill him fair enough."
    "You took an awkward way. Did he discharge you?"
    "Discharge me? No! He knew I did just right."

    A GOVERNOR it was proclaimed this time,
    When all who would come seeking in New Hampshire
    Ancestral memories might come together.
    And those of the name Stark gathered in Bow,
    A rock-strewn town where farming has fallen off,
    And sprout-lands flourish where the axe has gone.
    Someone had literally run to earth
    In an old cellar hole in a by-road
    The origin of all the family there.
    Thence they were sprung, so numerous a tribe
    That now not all the houses left in town
    Made shift to shelter them without the help
    Of here and there a tent in grove and orchard.
    They were at Bow, but that was not enough:
    Nothing would do but they must fix a day
    To stand together on the crater's verge
    That turned them on the world, and try to fathom
    The past and get some strangeness out of it.
    But rain spoiled all. The day began uncertain,
    With clouds low trailing and moments of rain that misted.
    The young folk held some hope out to each other
    Till well toward noon when the storm settled down
    With a swish in the grass. "What if the others
    Are there," they said. "It isn't going to rain."
    Only one from a farm not far away
    Strolled thither, not expecting he would find
    Anyone else, but out of idleness.
    One, and one other, yes, for there were two.
    The second round the curving hillside road
    Was a girl; and she halted some way off
    To reconnoitre, and then made up her mind
    At least to pass by and see who he was,
    And perhaps hear some word about the weather.
    This was some Stark she didn't know. He nodded.
    "No fête to-day," he said.
    "It looks that way."
    She swept the heavens, turning on her heel.
    "I only idled down."
    "I idled down."
    Provision there had been for just such meeting
    Of stranger cousins, in a family tree
    Drawn on a sort of passport with the branch
    Of the one bearing it done in detail—
    Some zealous one's laborious device.
    She made a sudden movement toward her bodice,
    As one who clasps her heart. They laughed together.
    "Stark?" he inquired. "No matter for the proof."
    "Yes, Stark. And you?"
    "I'm Stark." He drew his passport.
    "You know we might not be and still be cousins:
    The town is full of Chases, Lowes, and Baileys,
    All claiming some priority in Starkness.
    My mother was a Lane, yet might have married
    Anyone upon earth and still her children
    Would have been Starks, and doubtless here to-day."
    "You riddle with your genealogy
    Like a Viola. I don't follow you."
    "I only mean my mother was a Stark
    Several times over, and by marrying father
    No more than brought us back into the name."
    "One ought not to be thrown into confusion
    By a plain statement of relationship,
    But I own what you say makes my head spin.
    You take my card—you seem so good at such things—
    And see if you can reckon our cousinship.
    Why not take seats here on the cellar wall
    And dangle feet among the raspberry vines?"
    "Under the shelter of the family tree."
    "Just so—that ought to be enough protection."
    "Not from the rain. I think it's going to rain."
    "It's raining."
    "No, it's misting; let's be fair.
    Does the rain seem to you to cool the eyes?"
    The situation was like this: the road
    Bowed outward on the mountain half-way up,
    And disappeared and ended not far off.
    No one went home that way. The only house
    Beyond where they were was a shattered seedpod.
    And below roared a brook hidden in trees,
    The sound of which was silence for the place.
    This he sat listening to till she gave judgment.
    "On father's side, it seems, we're—let me see——"
    "Don't be too technical.—You have three cards."
    "Four cards, one yours, three mine, one for each branch
    Of the Stark family I'm a member of."
    "D'you know a person so related to herself
    Is supposed to be mad."
    "I may be mad."
    "You look so, sitting out here in the rain
    Studying genealogy with me
    You never saw before. What will we come to
    With all this pride of ancestry, we Yankees?
    I think we're all mad. Tell me why we're here
    Drawn into town about this cellar hole
    Like wild geese on a lake before a storm?
    What do we see in such a hole, I wonder."
    "The Indians had a myth of Chicamoztoc,
    Which means The Seven Caves that We Came out of.
    This is the pit from which we Starks were digged."
    "You must be learned. That's what you see in it?"
    "And what do you see?"
    "Yes, what do I see?
    First let me look. I see raspberry vines——"
    "Oh, if you're going to use your eyes, just hear
    What I see. It's a little, little boy,
    As pale and dim as a match flame in the sun;
    He's groping in the cellar after jam,
    He thinks it's dark and it's flooded with daylight."
    "He's nothing. Listen. When I lean like this
    I can make out old Grandsir Stark distinctly,—
    With his pipe in his mouth and his brown jug—
    Bless you, it isn't Grandsir Stark, it's Granny,
    But the pipe's there and smoking and the jug.
    She's after cider, the old girl, she's thirsty;
    Here's hoping she gets her drink and gets out safely."
    "Tell me about her. Does she look like me?"
    "She should, shouldn't she, you're so many times
    Over descended from her. I believe
    She does look like you. Stay the way you are.
    The nose is just the same, and so's the chin—
    Making allowance, making due allowance."
    "You poor, dear, great, great, great, great Granny!"
    "See that you get her greatness right. Don't stint her."
    "Yes, it's important, though you think it isn't.
    I won't be teased. But see how wet I am."
    "Yes, you must go; we can't stay here for ever.
    But wait until I give you a hand up.
    A bead of silver water more or less
    Strung on your hair won't hurt your summer looks.
    I wanted to try something with the noise
    That the brook raises in the empty valley.
    We have seen visions—now consult the voices.
    Something I must have learned riding in trains
    When I was young. I used the roar
    To set the voices speaking out of it,
    Speaking or singing, and the band-music playing.
    Perhaps you have the art of what I mean.
    I've never listened in among the sounds
    That a brook makes in such a wild descent.
    It ought to give a purer oracle."
    "It's as you throw a picture on a screen:
    The meaning of it all is out of you;
    The voices give you what you wish to hear."
    "Strangely, it's anything they wish to give."
    "Then I don't know. It must be strange enough.
    I wonder if it's not your make-believe.
    What do you think you're like to hear to-day?"
    "From the sense of our having been together—
    But why take time for what I'm like to hear?
    I'll tell you what the voices really say.
    You will do very well right where you are
    A little longer. I mustn't feel too hurried,
    Or I can't give myself to hear the voices."
    "Is this some trance you are withdrawing into?"
    "You must be very still; you mustn't talk."
    "I'll hardly breathe."
    "The voices seem to say——"
    "I'm waiting."
    "Don't! The voices seem to say:
    Call her Nausicaa, the unafraid
    Of an acquaintance made adventurously."
    "I let you say that—on consideration."
    "I don't see very well how you can help it.
    You want the truth. I speak but by the voices.
    You see they know I haven't had your name,
    Though what a name should matter between us——"
    "I shall suspect——"
    "Be good. The voices say:
    Call her Nausicaa, and take a timber
    That you shall find lies in the cellar charred
    Among the raspberries, and hew and shape it
    For a door-sill or other corner piece
    In a new cottage on the ancient spot.
    The life is not yet all gone out of it.
    And come and make your summer dwelling here,
    And perhaps she will come, still unafraid,
    And sit before you in the open door
    With flowers in her lap until they fade,
    But not come in across the sacred sill——"
    "I wonder where your oracle is tending.
    You can see that there's something wrong with it,
    Or it would speak in dialect. Whose voice
    Does it purport to speak in? Not old Grandsir's
    Nor Granny's, surely. Call up one of them.
    They have best right to be heard in this place."
    "You seem so partial to our great-grandmother
    (Nine times removed. Correct me if I err.)
    You will be likely to regard as sacred
    Anything she may say. But let me warn you,
    Folks in her day were given to plain speaking.
    You think you'd best tempt her at such a time?"
    "It rests with us always to cut her off."
    "Well then, it's Granny speaking: 'I dunnow!
    Mebbe I'm wrong to take it as I do.
    There ain't no names quite like the old ones though,
    Nor never will be to my way of thinking.
    One mustn't bear too hard on the new comers,
    But there's a dite too many of them for comfort.
    I should feel easier if I could see
    More of the salt wherewith they're to be salted.
    Son, you do as you're told! You take the timber—
    It's as sound as the day when it was cut—
    And begin over——' There, she'd better stop.
    You can see what is troubling Granny, though.
    But don't you think we sometimes make too much
    Of the old stock? What counts is the ideals,
    And those will bear some keeping still about."
    "I can see we are going to be good friends."
    "I like your 'going to be.' You said just now
    It's going to rain."
    "I know, and it was raining.
    I let you say all that. But I must go now."
    "You let me say it? on consideration?
    How shall we say good-bye in such a case?"
    "How shall we?"
    "Will you leave the way to me?"
    "No, I don't trust your eyes. You've said enough.
    Now give me your hand up.—Pick me that flower."
    "Where shall we meet again?"
    "Nowhere but here
    Once more before we meet elsewhere."
    "In rain?"
    "It ought to be in rain. Sometime in rain.
    In rain to-morrow, shall we, if it rains?
    But if we must, in sunshine." So she went.

    I LET myself in at the kitchen door.
    "It's you," she said. "I can't get up. Forgive me
    Not answering your knock. I can no more
    Let people in than I can keep them out.
    I'm getting too old for my size, I tell them.
    My fingers are about all I've the use of
    So's to take any comfort. I can sew:
    I help out with this beadwork what I can."
    "That's a smart pair of pumps you're beading there.
    Who are they for?"
    "You mean?—oh, for some miss.
    I can't keep track of other people's daughters.
    Lord, if I were to dream of everyone
    Whose shoes I primped to dance in!"
    "And where's John?"
    "Haven't you seen him? Strange what set you off
    To come to his house when he's gone to yours.
    You can't have passed each other. I know what:
    He must have changed his mind and gone to Garlands.
    He won't be long in that case. You can wait.
    Though what good you can be, or anyone—
    It's gone so far. You've heard? Estelle's run off."
    "Yes, what's it all about? When did she go?"
    "Two weeks since."
    "She's in earnest, it appears."
    "I'm sure she won't come back. She's hiding somewhere.
    I don't know where myself. John thinks I do.
    He thinks I only have to say the word,
    And she'll come back. But, bless you, I'm her mother—
    I can't talk to her, and, Lord, if I could!"
    "It will go hard with John. What will he do?
    He can't find anyone to take her place."
    "Oh, if you ask me that, what will he do?
    He gets some sort of bakeshop meals together,
    With me to sit and tell him everything,
    What's wanted and how much and where it is.
    But when I'm gone—of course I can't stay here:
    Estelle's to take me when she's settled down.
    He and I only hinder one another.
    I tell them they can't get me through the door, though:
    I've been built in here like a big church organ.
    We've been here fifteen years."
    "That's a long time
    To live together and then pull apart.
    How do you see him living when you're gone?
    Two of you out will leave an empty house."
    "I don't just see him living many years,
    Left here with nothing but the furniture.
    I hate to think of the old place when we're gone,
    With the brook going by below the yard,
    And no one here but hens blowing about.
    If he could sell the place, but then, he can't:
    No one will ever live on it again.
    It's too run down. This is the last of it.
    What I think he will do, is let things smash.
    He'll sort of swear the time away. He's awful!
    I never saw a man let family troubles
    Make so much difference in his man's affairs.
    He's just dropped everything. He's like a child.
    I blame his being brought up by his mother.
    He's got hay down that's been rained on three times.
    He hoed a little yesterday for me:
    I thought the growing things would do him good.
    Something went wrong. I saw him throw the hoe
    Sky-high with both hands. I can see it now—
    Come here—I'll show you—in that apple tree.
    That's no way for a man to do at his age:
    He's fifty-five, you know, if he's a day."
    "Aren't you afraid of him? What's that gun for?"
    "Oh, that's been there for hawks since chicken-time.
    John Hall touch me! Not if he knows his friends.
    I'll say that for him, John's no threatener
    Like some men folk. No one's afraid of him;
    All is, he's made up his mind not to stand
    What he has got to stand."
    "Where is Estelle?
    Couldn't one talk to her? What does she say?
    You say you don't know where she is."
    "Nor want to!
    She thinks if it was bad to live with him,
    It must be right to leave him."
    "Which is wrong!"
    "Yes, but he should have married her."
    "I know."
    "The strain's been too much for her all these years:
    I can't explain it any other way.
    It's different with a man, at least with John:
    He knows he's kinder than the run of men.
    Better than married ought to be as good
    As married—that's what he has always said.
    I know the way he's felt—but all the same!"
    "I wonder why he doesn't marry her
    And end it."
    "Too late now: she wouldn't have him.
    He's given her time to think of something else.
    That's his mistake. The dear knows my interest
    Has been to keep the thing from breaking up.
    This is a good home: I don't ask for better.
    But when I've said, 'Why shouldn't they be married,'
    He'd say, 'Why should they?' no more words than that."
    "And after all why should they? John's been fair
    I take it. What was his was always hers.
    There was no quarrel about property."
    "Reason enough, there was no property.
    A friend or two as good as own the farm,
    Such as it is. It isn't worth the mortgage."
    "I mean Estelle has always held the purse."
    "The rights of that are harder to get at.
    I guess Estelle and I have filled the purse.
    'Twas we let him have money, not he us.
    John's a bad farmer. I'm not blaming him.
    Take it year in, year out, he doesn't make much.
    We came here for a home for me, you know,
    Estelle to do the housework for the board
    Of both of us. But look how it turns out:
    She seems to have the housework, and besides,
    Half of the outdoor work, though as for that,
    He'd say she does it more because she likes it.
    You see our pretty things are all outdoors.
    Our hens and cows and pigs are always better
    Than folks like us have any business with.
    Farmers around twice as well off as we
    Haven't as good. They don't go with the farm.
    One thing you can't help liking about John,
    He's fond of nice things—too fond, some would say.
    But Estelle don't complain: she's like him there.
    She wants our hens to be the best there are.
    You never saw this room before a show,
    Full of lank, shivery, half-drowned birds
    In separate coops, having their plumage done.
    The smell of the wet feathers in the heat!
    You spoke of John's not being safe to stay with.
    You don't know what a gentle lot we are:
    We wouldn't hurt a hen! You ought to see us
    Moving a flock of hens from place to place.
    We're not allowed to take them upside down,
    All we can hold together by the legs.
    Two at a time's the rule, one on each arm,
    No matter how far and how many times
    We have to go."
    "You mean that's John's idea."
    "And we live up to it; or I don't know
    What childishness he wouldn't give way to.
    He manages to keep the upper hand
    On his own farm. He's boss. But as to hens:
    We fence our flowers in and the hens range.
    Nothing's too good for them. We say it pays.
    John likes to tell the offers he has had,
    Twenty for this cock, twenty-five for that.
    He never takes the money. If they're worth
    That much to sell, they're worth as much to keep.
    Bless you, it's all expense, though. Reach me down
    The little tin box on the cupboard shelf,
    The upper shelf, the tin box. That's the one.
    I'll show you. Here you are."
    "What's this?"
    "A bill—
    For fifty dollars for one Langshang cock—
    Receipted. And the cock is in the yard."
    "Not in a glass case, then?"
    "He'd need a tall one:
    He can eat off a barrel from the ground.
    He's been in a glass case, as you may say,
    The Crystal Palace, London. He's imported.
    John bought him, and we paid the bill with beads—
    Wampum, I call it. Mind, we don't complain.
    But you see, don't you, we take care of him."
    "And like it, too. It makes it all the worse."
    "It seems as if. And that's not all: he's helpless
    In ways that I can hardly tell you of.
    Sometimes he gets possessed to keep accounts
    To see where all the money goes so fast.
    You know how men will be ridiculous.
    But it's just fun the way he gets bedeviled—
    If he's untidy now, what will he be——?
    "It makes it all the worse. You must be blind."
    "Estelle's the one. You needn't talk to me."
    "Can't you and I get to the root of it?
    What's the real trouble? What will satisfy her?"
    "It's as I say: she's turned from him, that's all."
    "But why, when she's well off? Is it the neighbours,
    Being cut off from friends?"
    "We have our friends.
    That isn't it. Folks aren't afraid of us."
    "She's let it worry her. You stood the strain,
    And you're her mother."
    "But I didn't always.
    I didn't relish it along at first.
    But I got wonted to it. And besides—
    John said I was too old to have grandchildren.
    But what's the use of talking when it's done?
    She won't come back—it's worse than that—she can't."
    "Why do you speak like that? What do you know?
    What do you mean?—she's done harm to herself?"
    "I mean she's married—married someone else."
    "Oho, oho!"
    "You don't believe me."
    "Yes, I do,
    Only too well. I knew there must be something!
    So that was what was back. She's bad, that's all!"
    "Bad to get married when she had the chance?"
    "Nonsense! See what's she done! But who, who——"
    "Who'd marry her straight out of such a mess?
    Say it right out—no matter for her mother.
    The man was found. I'd better name no names.
    John himself won't imagine who he is."
    "Then it's all up. I think I'll get away.
    You'll be expecting John. I pity Estelle;
    I suppose she deserves some pity, too.
    You ought to have the kitchen to yourself
    To break it to him. You may have the job."
    "You needn't think you're going to get away.
    John's almost here. I've had my eye on someone
    Coming down Ryan's Hill. I thought 'twas him.
    Here he is now. This box! Put it away.
    And this bill."
    "What's the hurry? He'll unhitch."
    "No, he won't, either. He'll just drop the reins
    And turn Doll out to pasture, rig and all.
    She won't get far before the wheels hang up
    On something—there's no harm. See, there he is!
    My, but he looks as if he must have heard!"
    John threw the door wide but he didn't enter.
    "How are you, neighbour? Just the man I'm after.
    Isn't it Hell," he said. "I want to know.
    Come out here if you want to hear me talk.
    I'll talk to you, old woman, afterward.
    I've got some news that maybe isn't news.
    What are they trying to do to me, these two?"
    "Do go along with him and stop his shouting."
    She raised her voice against the closing door:
    "Who wants to hear your news, you—dreadful fool?"

    A LANTERN light from deeper in the barn
    Shone on a man and woman in the door
    And threw their lurching shadows on a house
    Near by, all dark in every glossy window.
    A horse's hoof pawed once the hollow floor,
    And the back of the gig they stood beside
    Moved in a little. The man grasped a wheel,
    The woman spoke out sharply, "Whoa, stand still!"
    "I saw it just as plain as a white plate,"
    She said, "as the light on the dashboard ran
    Along the bushes at the roadside—a man's face.
    You must have seen it too."
    "I didn't see it.
    Are you sure——"
    "Yes, I'm sure!"
    "—it was a face?"
    "Joel, I'll have to look. I can't go in,
    I can't, and leave a thing like that unsettled.
    Doors locked and curtains drawn will make no difference.
    I always have felt strange when we came home
    To the dark house after so long an absence,
    And the key rattled loudly into place
    Seemed to warn someone to be getting out
    At one door as we entered at another.
    What if I'm right, and someone all the time—
    Don't hold my arm!"
    "I say it's someone passing."
    "You speak as if this were a travelled road.
    You forget where we are. What is beyond
    That he'd be going to or coming from
    At such an hour of night, and on foot too.
    What was he standing still for in the bushes?"
    "It's not so very late—it's only dark.
    There's more in it than you're inclined to say.
    Did he look like——?"
    "He looked like anyone.
    I'll never rest to-night unless I know.
    Give me the lantern."
    "You don't want the lantern."
    She pushed past him and got it for herself.
    "You're not to come," she said. "This is my business.
    If the time's come to face it, I'm the one
    To put it the right way. He'd never dare—
    Listen! He kicked a stone. Hear that, hear that!
    He's coming towards us. Joel, go in—please.
    Hark!—I don't hear him now. But please go in."
    "In the first place you can't make me believe it's——"
    "It is—or someone else he's sent to watch.
    And now's the time to have it out with him
    While we know definitely where he is.
    Let him get off and he'll be everywhere
    Around us, looking out of trees and bushes
    Till I sha'n't dare to set a foot outdoors.
    And I can't stand it. Joel, let me go!"
    "But it's nonsense to think he'd care enough."
    "You mean you couldn't understand his caring.
    Oh, but you see he hadn't had enough—
    Joel, I won't—I won't—I promise you.
    We mustn't say hard things. You mustn't either."
    "I'll be the one, if anybody goes!
    But you give him the advantage with this light.
    What couldn't he do to us standing here!
    And if to see was what he wanted, why
    He has seen all there was to see and gone."
    He appeared to forget to keep his hold,
    But advanced with her as she crossed the grass.
    "What do you want?" she cried to all the dark.
    She stretched up tall to overlook the light
    That hung in both hands hot against her skirt.
    "There's no one; so you're wrong," he said.
    "There is.—
    What do you want?" she cried, and then herself
    Was startled when an answer really came.
    "Nothing." It came from well along the road.
    She reached a hand to Joel for support:
    The smell of scorching woollen made her faint.
    "What are you doing round this house at night?"
    "Nothing." A pause: there seemed no more to say.
    And then the voice again: "You seem afraid.
    I saw by the way you whipped up the horse.
    I'll just come forward in the lantern light
    And let you see."
    "Yes, do.—Joel, go back!"
    She stood her ground against the noisy steps
    That came on, but her body rocked a little.
    "You see," the voice said.
    "Oh." She looked and looked.
    "You don't see—I've a child here by the hand."
    "What's a child doing at this time of night——?"
    "Out walking. Every child should have the memory
    Of at least one long-after-bedtime walk.
    What, son?"
    "Then I should think you'd try to find
    Somewhere to walk——"
    "The highway as it happens—
    We're stopping for the fortnight down at Dean's."
    "But if that's all—Joel—you realize—
    You won't think anything. You understand?
    You understand that we have to be careful.
    This is a very, very lonely place.
    Joel!" She spoke as if she couldn't turn.
    The swinging lantern lengthened to the ground,
    It touched, it struck it, clattered and went out.

    "WILLIS, I didn't want you here to-day:
    The lawyer's coming for the company.
    I'm going to sell my soul, or, rather, feet.
    Five hundred dollars for the pair, you know."
    "With you the feet have nearly been the soul;
    And if you're going to sell them to the devil,
    I want to see you do it. When's he coming?"
    "I half suspect you knew, and came on purpose
    To try to help me drive a better bargain."
    "Well, if it's true! Yours are no common feet.
    The lawyer don't know what it is he's buying:
    So many miles you might have walked you won't walk.
    You haven't run your forty orchids down.
    What does he think?—How are the blessed feet?
    The doctor's sure you're going to walk again?"
    "He thinks I'll hobble. It's both legs and feet."
    "They must be terrible—I mean to look at."
    "I haven't dared to look at them uncovered.
    Through the bed blankets I remind myself
    Of a starfish laid out with rigid points."
    "The wonder is it hadn't been your head."
    "It's hard to tell you how I managed it.
    When I saw the shaft had me by the coat,
    I didn't try too long to pull away,
    Or fumble for my knife to cut away,
    I just embraced the shaft and rode it out—
    Till Weiss shut off the water in the wheel-pit.
    That's how I think I didn't lose my head.
    But my legs got their knocks against the ceiling."
    "Awful. Why didn't they throw off the belt
    Instead of going clear down in the wheel-pit?"
    "They say some time was wasted on the belt—
    Old streak of leather—doesn't love me much
    Because I make him spit fire at my knuckles,
    The way Ben Franklin used to make the kite-string.
    That must be it. Some days he won't stay on.
    That day a woman couldn't coax him off.
    He's on his rounds now with his tail in his mouth
    Snatched right and left across the silver pulleys.
    Everything goes the same without me there.
    You can hear the small buzz saws whine, the big saw
    Caterwaul to the hills around the village
    As they both bite the wood. It's all our music.
    One ought as a good villager to like it.
    No doubt it has a sort of prosperous sound,
    And it's our life."
    "Yes, when it's not our death."
    "You make that sound as if it wasn't so
    With everything. What we live by we die by.
    I wonder where my lawyer is. His train's in.
    I want this over with; I'm hot and tired."
    "You're getting ready to do something foolish."
    "Watch for him, will you, Will? You let him in.
    I'd rather Mrs. Corbin didn't know;
    I've boarded here so long, she thinks she owns me.
    You're bad enough to manage without her."
    "And I'm going to be worse instead of better.
    You've got to tell me how far this is gone:
    Have you agreed to any price?"
    "Five hundred.
    Five hundred—five—five! One, two, three, four, five.
    You needn't look at me."
    "I don't believe you."
    "I told you, Willis, when you first came in.
    Don't you be hard on me. I have to take
    What I can get. You see they have the feet,
    Which gives them the advantage in the trade.
    I can't get back the feet in any case."
    "But your flowers, man, you're selling out your flowers."
    "Yes, that's one way to put it—all the flowers
    Of every kind everywhere in this region
    For the next forty summers—call it forty.
    But I'm not selling those, I'm giving them,
    They never earned me so much as one cent:
    Money can't pay me for the loss of them.
    No, the five hundred was the sum they named
    To pay the doctor's bill and tide me over.
    It's that or fight, and I don't want to fight—
    I just want to get settled in my life,
    Such as it's going to be, and know the worst,
    Or best—it may not be so bad. The firm
    Promise me all the shooks I want to nail."
    "But what about your flora of the valley?"
    "You have me there. But that—you didn't think
    That was worth money to me? Still I own
    It goes against me not to finish it
    For the friends it might bring me. By the way,
    I had a letter from Burroughs—did I tell you?—
    About my Cyprepedium reginæ;
    He says it's not reported so far north.
    There! there's the bell. He's rung. But you go down
    And bring him up, and don't let Mrs. Corbin.—
    Oh, well, we'll soon be through with it. I'm tired."
    Willis brought up besides the Boston lawyer
    A little barefoot girl who in the noise
    Of heavy footsteps in the old frame house,
    And baritone importance of the lawyer,
    Stood for a while unnoticed with her hands
    Shyly behind her.
    "Well, and how is Mister——"
    The lawyer was already in his satchel
    As if for papers that might bear the name
    He hadn't at command. "You must excuse me,
    I dropped in at the mill and was detained."
    "Looking round, I suppose," said Willis.
    "Yes,
    Well, yes."
    "Hear anything that might prove useful?"
    The Broken One saw Anne. "Why, here is Anne.
    What do you want, dear? Come, stand by the bed;
    Tell me what is it?" Anne just wagged her dress
    With both hands held behind her. "Guess," she said.
    "Oh, guess which hand? My my! Once on a time
    I knew a lovely way to tell for certain
    By looking in the ears. But I forget it.
    Er, let me see. I think I'll take the right.
    That's sure to be right even if it's wrong.
    Come, hold it out. Don't change.—A Ram's Horn orchid!
    A Ram's Horn! What would I have got, I wonder,
    If I had chosen left. Hold out the left.
    Another Ram's Horn! Where did you find those,
    Under what beech tree, on what woodchuck's knoll?"
    Anne looked at the large lawyer at her side,
    And thought she wouldn't venture on so much.
    "Were there no others?"
    "There were four or five.
    I knew you wouldn't let me pick them all."
    "I wouldn't—so I wouldn't. You're the girl!
    You see Anne has her lesson learned by heart."
    "I wanted there should be some there next year."
    "Of course you did. You left the rest for seed,
    And for the backwoods woodchuck. You're the girl!
    A Ram's Horn orchid seedpod for a woodchuck
    Sounds something like. Better than farmer's beans
    To a discriminating appetite,
    Though the Ram's Horn is seldom to be had
    In bushel lots—doesn't come on the market.
    But, Anne, I'm troubled; have you told me all?
    You're hiding something. That's as bad as lying.
    You ask this lawyer man. And it's not safe
    With a lawyer at hand to find you out.
    Nothing is hidden from some people, Anne.
    You don't tell me that where you found a Ram's Horn
    You didn't find a Yellow Lady's Slipper.
    What did I tell you? What? I'd blush, I would.
    Don't you defend yourself. If it was there,
    Where is it now, the Yellow Lady's Slipper?"
    "Well, wait—it's common—it's too common."
    "Common?
    The Purple Lady's Slipper's commoner."
    "I didn't bring a Purple Lady's Slipper
    To You—to you I mean—they're both too common."
    The lawyer gave a laugh among his papers
    As if with some idea that she had scored.
    "I've broken Anne of gathering bouquets.
    It's not fair to the child. It can't be helped though:
    Pressed into service means pressed out of shape.
    Somehow I'll make it right with her—she'll see.
    She's going to do my scouting in the field,
    Over stone walls and all along a wood
    And by a river bank for water flowers,
    The floating Heart, with small leaf like a heart,
    And at the sinus under water a fist
    Of little fingers all kept down but one,
    And that thrust up to blossom in the sun
    As if to say, 'You! You're the Heart's desire.'
    Anne has a way with flowers to take the place
    Of that she's lost: she goes down on one knee
    And lifts their faces by the chin to hers
    And says their names, and leaves them where they are."
    The lawyer wore a watch the case of which
    Was cunningly devised to make a noise
    Like a small pistol when he snapped it shut
    At such a time as this. He snapped it now.
    "Well, Anne, go, dearie. Our affair will wait.
    The lawyer man is thinking of his train.
    He wants to give me lots and lots of money
    Before he goes, because I hurt myself,
    And it may take him I don't know how long.
    But put our flowers in water first. Will, help her:
    The pitcher's too full for her. There's no cup?
    Just hook them on the inside of the pitcher.
    Now run.—Get out your documents! You see
    I have to keep on the good side of Anne.
    I'm a great boy to think of number one.
    And you can't blame me in the place I'm in.
    Who will take care of my necessities
    Unless I do?"
    "A pretty interlude,"
    The lawyer said. "I'm sorry, but my train—
    Luckily terms are all agreed upon.
    You only have to sign your name. Right—there."
    "You, Will, stop making faces. Come round here
    Where you can't make them. What is it you want?
    I'll put you out with Anne. Be good or go."
    "You don't mean you will sign that thing unread?"
    "Make yourself useful then, and read it for me.
    Isn't it something I have seen before?"
    "You'll find it is. Let your friend look at it."
    "Yes, but all that takes time, and I'm as much
    In haste to get it over with as you.
    But read it, read it. That's right, draw the curtain:
    Half the time I don't know what's troubling me.—
    What do you say, Will? Don't you be a fool,
    You! crumpling folkses legal documents.
    Out with it if you've any real objection."
    "Five hundred dollars!"
    "What would you think right?"
    "A thousand wouldn't be a cent too much;
    You know it, Mr. Lawyer. The sin is
    Accepting anything before he knows
    Whether he's ever going to walk again.
    It smells to me like a dishonest trick."
    "I think—I think—from what I heard to-day—
    And saw myself—he would be ill-advised——"
    "What did you hear, for instance?" Willis said.
    "Now the place where the accident occurred——"
    The Broken One was twisted in his bed.
    "This is between you two apparently.
    Where I come in is what I want to know.
    You stand up to it like a pair of cocks.
    Go outdoors if you want to fight. Spare me.
    When you come back, I'll have the papers signed.
    Will pencil do? Then, please, your fountain pen.
    One of you hold my head up from the pillow."
    Willis flung off the bed. "I wash my hands—
    I'm no match—no, and don't pretend to be——"
    The lawyer gravely capped his fountain pen.
    "You're doing the wise thing: you won't regret it.
    We're very sorry for you."
    Willis sneered:
    "Who's we?—some stockholders in Boston?
    I'll go outdoors, by gad, and won't come back."
    "Willis, bring Anne back with you when you come.
    Yes. Thanks for caring. Don't mind Will: he's savage.
    He thinks you ought to pay me for my flowers.
    You don't know what I mean about the flowers.
    Don't stop to try to now. You'll miss your train.
    Good-bye." He flung his arms around his face.