Chapter 2

Having a wheel and four legs of its own Has never availed the cumbersome grindstone To get it anywhere that I can see. These hands have helped it go and even race; Not all the motion, though, they ever lent, Not all the miles it may have thought it went, Have got it one step from the starting place. It stands beside the same old apple tree. The shadow of the apple tree is thin Upon it now; its feet are fast in snow. All other farm machinery's gone in, And some of it on no more legs and wheel Than the grindstone can boast to stand or go. (I'm thinking chiefly of the wheelbarrow.) For months it hasn't known the taste of steel, Washed down with rusty water in a tin. But standing outdoors, hungry, in the cold, Except in towns, at night, is not a sin. And, anyway, its standing in the yard Under a ruinous live apple tree Has nothing any more to do with me, Except that I remember how of old, One summer day, all day I drove it hard, And some one mounted on it rode it hard, And he and I between us ground a blade.

I gave it the preliminary spin, And poured on water (tears it might have been); And when it almost gayly jumped and flowed, A Father-Time-like man got on and rode, Armed with a scythe and spectacles that glowed. He turned on will-power to increase the load And slow me down--and I abruptly slowed, Like coming to a sudden railroad station. I changed from hand to hand in desperation.

I wondered what machine of ages gone This represented an improvement on. For all I knew it may have sharpened spears And arrowheads itself. Much use for years Had gradually worn it an oblate Spheroid that kicked and struggled in its gait, Appearing to return me hate for hate. (But I forgive it now as easily As any other boyhood enemy Whose pride has failed to get him anywhere.) I wondered who it was the man thought ground-- The one who held the wheel back or the one Who gave his life to keep it going round? I wondered if he really thought it fair For him to have the say when we were done. Such were the bitter thoughts to which I turned.

Not for myself was I so much concerned. Oh, no!--although, of course, I could have found A better way to pass the afternoon Than grinding discord out of a grindstone, And beating insects at their gritty tune. Nor was I for the man so much concerned. Once when the grindstone almost jumped its bearing It looked as if he might be badly thrown And wounded on his blade. So far from caring, I laughed inside, and only cranked the faster, (It ran as if it wasn't greased but glued); I welcomed any moderate disaster That might be calculated to postpone What evidently nothing could conclude.

The thing that made me more and more afraid Was that we'd ground it sharp and hadn't known, And now were only wasting precious blade. And when he raised it dripping once and tried The creepy edge of it with wary touch, And viewed it over his glasses funny-eyed, Only disinterestedly to decide It needed a turn more, I could have cried Wasn't there danger of a turn too much? Mightn't we make it worse instead of better? I was for leaving something to the whetter. What if it wasn't all it should be? I'd Be satisfied if he'd be satisfied.

THE WITCH OF COÖS

_Circa 1922_

I staid the night for shelter at a farm Behind the mountain, with a mother and son, Two old-believers. They did all the talking.

_The Mother_ Folks think a witch who has familiar spirits She _could_ call up to pass a winter evening, But _won't_, should be burned at the stake or something. Summoning spirits isn't "Button, button, Who's got the button?" I'd have you understand.

_The Son_ Mother can make a common table rear And kick with two legs like an army mule.

_The Mother_ And when I've done it, what good have I done? Rather than tip a table for you, let me Tell you what Ralle the Sioux Control once told me. He said the dead had souls, but when I asked him How that could be--I thought the dead were souls, He broke my trance. Don't that make you suspicious That there's something the dead are keeping back? Yes, there's something the dead are keeping back.

_The Son_ You wouldn't want to tell him what we have Up attic, mother?

_The Mother_ Bones--a skeleton.

_The Son_ But the headboard of mother's bed is pushed Against the attic door: the door is nailed. It's harmless. Mother hears it in the night Halting perplexed behind the barrier Of door and headboard. Where it wants to get Is back into the cellar where it came from.

_The Mother_ We'll never let them, will we, son? We'll never!

_The Son_ It left the cellar forty years ago And carried itself like a pile of dishes Up one flight from the cellar to the kitchen, Another from the kitchen to the bedroom, Another from the bedroom to the attic, Right past both father and mother, and neither stopped it. Father had gone upstairs; mother was downstairs. I was a baby: I don't know where I was.

_The Mother_ The only fault my husband found with me-- I went to sleep before I went to bed, Especially in winter when the bed Might just as well be ice and the clothes snow. The night the bones came up the cellar-stairs Toffile had gone to bed alone and left me, But left an open door to cool the room off So as to sort of turn me out of it. I was just coming to myself enough To wonder where the cold was coming from, When I heard Toffile upstairs in the bedroom And thought I heard him downstairs in the cellar. The board we had laid down to walk dry-shod on When there was water in the cellar in spring Struck the hard cellar bottom. And then some one Began the stairs, two footsteps for each step, The way a man with one leg and a crutch, Or little child, comes up. It wasn't Toffile: It wasn't any one who could be there. The bulkhead double-doors were double-locked And swollen tight and buried under snow. The cellar windows were banked up with sawdust And swollen tight and buried under snow. It was the bones. I knew them--and good reason. My first impulse was to get to the knob And hold the door. But the bones didn't try The door; they halted helpless on the landing, Waiting for things to happen in their favor. The faintest restless rustling ran all through them. I never could have done the thing I did If the wish hadn't been too strong in me To see how they were mounted for this walk. I had a vision of them put together Not like a man, but like a chandelier. So suddenly I flung the door wide on him. A moment he stood balancing with emotion, And all but lost himself. (A tongue of fire Flashed out and licked along his upper teeth. Smoke rolled inside the sockets of his eyes.) Then he came at me with one hand outstretched, The way he did in life once; but this time I struck the hand off brittle on the floor, And fell back from him on the floor myself. The finger-pieces slid in all directions. (Where did I see one of those pieces lately? Hand me my button-box--it must be there.) I sat up on the floor and shouted, "Toffile, It's coming up to you." It had its choice Of the door to the cellar or the hall. It took the hall door for the novelty, And set off briskly for so slow a thing, Still going every which way in the joints, though, So that it looked like lightning or a scribble, From the slap I had just now given its hand. I listened till it almost climbed the stairs From the hall to the only finished bedroom, Before I got up to do anything; Then ran and shouted, "Shut the bedroom door, Toffile, for my sake!" "Company," he said, "Don't make me get up; I'm too warm in bed." So lying forward weakly on the handrail I pushed myself upstairs, and in the light (The kitchen had been dark) I had to own I could see nothing. "Toffile, I don't see it. It's with us in the room, though. It's the bones." "What bones?" "The cellar bones--out of the grave."

* * * * *

That made him throw his bare legs out of bed And sit up by me and take hold of me. I wanted to put out the light and see If I could see it, or else mow the room, With our arms at the level of our knees, And bring the chalk-pile down. "I'll tell you what-- It's looking for another door to try. The uncommonly deep snow has made him think Of his old song, _The Wild Colonial Boy_, He always used to sing along the tote-road. He's after an open door to get out-doors. Let's trap him with an open door up attic." Toffile agreed to that, and sure enough, Almost the moment he was given an opening, The steps began to climb the attic stairs. I heard them. Toffile didn't seem to hear them. "Quick!" I slammed to the door and held the knob. "Toffile, get nails." I made him nail the door shut, And push the headboard of the bed against it.

Then we asked was there anything Up attic that we'd ever want again. The attic was less to us than the cellar. If the bones liked the attic, let them like it, Let them _stay_ in the attic. When they sometimes Come down the stairs at night and stand perplexed Behind the door and headboard of the bed, Brushing their chalky skull with chalky fingers, With sounds like the dry rattling of a shutter, That's what I sit up in the dark to say-- To no one any more since Toffile died. Let them stay in the attic since they went there. I promised Toffile to be cruel to them For helping them be cruel once to him.

_The Son_ We think they had a grave down in the cellar.

_The Mother_ We know they had a grave down in the cellar.

_The Son_ We never could find out whose bones they were.

_The Mother_ Yes, we could too, son. Tell the truth for once. They were a man's his father killed for me. I mean a man he killed instead of me. The least I could do was to help dig their grave. We were about it one night in the cellar. Son knows the story: but 'twas not for him To tell the truth, suppose the time had come. Son looks surprised to see me end a lie We'd kept up all these years between ourselves So as to have it ready for outsiders. But to-night I don't care enough to lie-- I don't remember why I ever cared. Toffile, if he were here, I don't believe Could tell you why he ever cared himself....

She hadn't found the finger-bone she wanted Among the buttons poured out in her lap.

I verified the name next morning: Toffile; The rural letter-box said Toffile Lajway.

A BROOK IN THE CITY

The farm house lingers, though averse to square With the new city street it has to wear A number in. But what about the brook That held the house as in an elbow-crook? I ask as one who knew the brook, its strength And impulse, having dipped a finger-length And made it leap my knuckle, having tossed A flower to try its currents where they crossed. The meadow grass could be cemented down From growing under pavements of a town; The apple trees be sent to hearth-stone flame. Is water wood to serve a brook the same? How else dispose of an immortal force No longer needed? Staunch it at its source With cinder loads dumped down? The brook was thrown Deep in a sewer dungeon under stone In fetid darkness still to live and run-- And all for nothing it had ever done Except forget to go in fear perhaps. No one would know except for ancient maps That such a brook ran water. But I wonder If, from its being kept forever under, These thoughts may not have risen that so keep This new-built city from both work and sleep.

DESIGN

I found a dimpled spider, fat and white, On a white heal-all, holding up a moth Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth-- Assorted characters of death and blight Mixed ready to begin the morning right, Like the ingredients of a witches' broth-- A snow-drop spider, a flower like froth, And dead wings carried like a paper kite.

What had that flower to do with being white, The wayside blue and innocent heal-all? What brought the kindred spider to that height, Then steered the white moth thither in the night? What but design of darkness to appal?-- If design govern in a thing so small.

CARL SANDBURG

AND SO TO-DAY

And so to-day--they lay him away-- the boy nobody knows the name of-- the buck private--the unknown soldier-- the doughboy who dug under and died when they told him to--that's him.

Down Pennsylvania Avenue to-day the riders go, men and boys riding horses, roses in their teeth, stems of roses, rose leaf stalks, rose dark leaves-- the line of the green ends in a red rose flash.

Skeleton men and boys riding skeleton horses, the rib bones shine, the rib bones curve, shine with savage, elegant curves-- a jawbone runs with a long white slant, a skull dome runs with a long white arch, bone triangles click and rattle, elbows, ankles, white line slants-- shining in the sun, past the White House, past the Treasury Building, Army and Navy Buildings, on to the mystic white Capitol Dome-- so they go down Pennsylvania Avenue to-day, skeleton men and boys riding skeleton horses, stems of roses in their teeth, rose dark leaves at their white jaw slants-- and a horse laugh question nickers and whinnies, moans with a whistle out of horse head teeth: why? who? where?

("The big fish--eat the little fish-- the little fish--eat the shrimps-- and the shrimps--eat mud,"-- said a cadaverous man--with a black umbrella-- spotted with white polka dots--with a missing ear--with a missing foot and arms-- with a missing sheath of muscles singing to the silver sashes of the sun.)

And so to-day--they lay him away-- the boy nobody knows the name of-- the buck private--the unknown soldier-- the doughboy who dug under and died when they told him to--that's him.

If he picked himself and said, "I am ready to die," if he gave his name and said, "My country, take me," then the baskets of roses to-day are for the Boy, the flowers, the songs, the steamboat whistles, the proclamations of the honorable orators, they are all for the Boy--that's him.

If the government of the Republic picked him saying, "You are wanted, your country takes you"-- if the Republic put a stethoscope to his heart and looked at his teeth and tested his eyes and said, "You are a citizen of the Republic and a sound animal in all parts and functions--the Republic takes you"-- then to-day the baskets of flowers are all for the Republic, the roses, the songs, the steamboat whistles, the proclamations of the honorable orators-- they are all for the Republic.

And so to-day--they lay him away-- and an understanding goes--his long sleep shall be under arms and arches near the Capitol Dome-- there is an authorization--he shall have tomb companions-- the martyred presidents of the Republic-- the buck private--the unknown soldier--that's him.

The man who was war commander of the armies of the Republic rides down Pennsylvania Avenue-- The man who is peace commander of the armies of the Republic rides down Pennsylvania Avenue-- for the sake of the Boy, for the sake of the Republic.

(And the hoofs of the skeleton horses all drum soft on the asphalt footing-- so soft is the drumming, so soft the roll call of the grinning sergeants calling the roll call-- so soft is it all--a camera man murmurs, "Moonshine.")

Look--who salutes the coffin-- lays a wreath of remembrance on the box where a buck private sleeps a clean dry sleep at last-- look--it is the highest ranking general of the officers of the armies of the Republic.

(Among pigeon corners of the Congressional Library--they file documents quietly, casually, all in a day's work-- this human document, the buck private nobody knows the name of--they file away in granite and steel--with music and roses, salutes, proclamations of the honorable orators.)

Across the country, between two ocean shore lines, where cities cling to rail and water routes, there people and horses stop in their foot tracks, cars and wagons stop in their wheel tracks-- faces at street crossings shine with a silence of eggs laid in a row on a pantry shelf-- among the ways and paths of the flow of the Republic faces come to a standstill, sixty clockticks count-- in the name of the Boy, in the name of the Republic.

(A million faces a thousand miles from Pennsylvania Avenue stay frozen with a look, a clocktick, a moment-- skeleton riders on skeleton horses--the nickering high horse laugh, the whinny and the howl up Pennsylvania Avenue: who? why? where?)

(So people far from the asphalt footing of Pennsylvania Avenue look, wonder, mumble--the riding white-jaw phantoms ride hi-eeee, hi-eeee, hi-yi, hi-yi, hi-eeee-- the proclamations of the honorable orators mix with the top-sergeants whistling the roll call.)

If when the clockticks counted sixty, when the heartbeats of the Republic came to a stop for a minute, if the Boy had happened to sit up, happening to sit up as Lazarus sat up, in the story, then the first shivering language to drip off his mouth might have come as, "Thank God," or "Am I dreaming?" or "What the hell" or "When do we eat?" or "Kill 'em, kill 'em, the...." or "Was that ... a rat ... ran over my face?" or "For Christ's sake, gimme water, gimme water," or "Blub blub, bloo bloo...." or any bubbles of shell shock gibberish from the gashes of No Man's Land.

Maybe some buddy knows, some sister, mother, sweetheart, maybe some girl who sat with him once when a two-horn silver moon slid on the peak of a house-roof gable, and promises lived in the air of the night, when the air was filled with promises, when any little slip-shoe lovey could pick a promise out of the air.

"Feed it to 'em, they lap it up, bull ... bull ... bull," Said a movie news reel camera man, Said a Washington newspaper correspondent, Said a baggage handler lugging a trunk, Said a two-a-day vaudeville juggler, Said a hanky-pank selling jumping-jacks. "Hokum--they lap it up," said the bunch.

And a tall scar-face ball player, Played out as a ball player, Made a speech of his own for the hero boy, Sent an earful of his own to the dead buck private: "It's all safe now, buddy, Safe when you say yes, Safe for the yes-men."

He was a tall scar-face battler With his face in a newspaper Reading want ads, reading jokes, Reading love, murder, politics, Jumping from jokes back to the want ads, Reading the want ads first and last, The letters of the word JOB, "J-O-B," Burnt like a shot of bootleg booze In the bones of his head-- In the wish of his scar-face eyes.

The honorable orators, Always the honorable orators, Buttoning the buttons on their prinz alberts, Pronouncing the syllables "sac-ri-fice," Juggling those bitter salt-soaked syllables-- Do they ever gag with hot ashes in their mouths? Do their tongues ever shrivel with a pain of fire Across those simple syllables "sac-ri-fice"?

(There was one orator people far off saw. He had on a gunnysack shirt over his bones, And he lifted an elbow socket over his head, And he lifted a skinny signal finger. And he had nothing to say, nothing easy-- He mentioned ten million men, mentioned them as having gone west, mentioned them as shoving up the daisies. We could write it all on a postage stamp, what he said. He said it and quit and faded away, A gunnysack shirt on his bones.)

Stars of the night sky, did you see that phantom fadeout, did you see those phantom riders, skeleton riders on skeleton horses, stems of roses in their teeth, rose leaves red on white-jaw slants, grinning along on Pennsylvania Avenue, the top-sergeants calling roll calls-- did their horses nicker a horse laugh? did the ghosts of the boney battalions move out and on, up the Potomac, over on the Ohio and out to the Mississippi, the Missouri, the Red River, and down to the Rio Grande, and on to the Yazoo, over to the Chattahoochee and up to the Rappahannock? did you see 'em, stars of the night sky?

And so to-day--they lay him away-- the boy nobody knows the name of-- they lay him away in granite and steel-- with music and roses--under a flag-- under a sky of promises.

CALIFORNIA CITY LANDSCAPE

On a mountain-side the real estate agents Put up signs marking the city lots to be sold there. A man whose father and mother were Irish Ran a goat farm half-way down the mountain; He drove a covered wagon years ago, Understood how to handle a rifle, Shot grouse, buffalo, Indians, in a single year, And now was raising goats around a shanty. Down at the foot of the mountain Two Japanese families had flower farms. A man and woman were in rows of sweet peas Picking the pink and white flowers To put in baskets and take to the Los Angeles market. They were clean as what they handled There in the morning sun, the big people and the baby-faces. Across the road, high on another mountain, Stood a house saying, "I am it," a commanding house. There was the home of a motion picture director Famous for lavish whore-house interiors, Clothes ransacked from the latest designs for women In the combats of "male against female." The mountain, the scenery, the layout of the landscape, And the peace of the morning sun as it happened, The miles of houses pocketed in the valley beyond-- It was all worth looking at, worth wondering about, How long it might last, how young it might be.

UPSTREAM

The strong men keep coming on. They go down shot, hanged, sick, broken. They live on, fighting, singing, lucky as plungers.

The strong men ... they keep coming on. The strong mothers pulling them from a dark sea, a great prairie, a long mountain.

Call hallelujah, call amen, call deep thanks. The strong men keep coming on.

WINDFLOWER LEAF

This flower is repeated out of old winds, out of old times.

The wind repeats these, it must have these, over and over again.

Oh, windflowers so fresh, Oh, beautiful leaves, here now again.

The domes over fall to pieces. The stones under fall to pieces. Rain and ice wreck the works. The wind keeps, the windflowers keep, the leaves last, The wind young and strong lets these last longer than stones.

VACHEL LINDSAY

IN PRAISE OF JOHNNY APPLESEED[1]

(_Born 1775. Died 1847_)

[Footnote 1: The best account of John Chapman's career, under the name "Johnny Appleseed," is to be found in _Harper's Monthly Magazine_, November, 1871.]

I. ~Over the Appalachian Barricade~

[Sidenote: _To be read like old leaves on the elm tree of Time. Sifting soft winds with sentence and rhyme_.]