Part 2

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 s'pose 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 shan't catch up in this world, anyway. I'd rather you'd not go unless you must.

THE SELF-SEEKER

"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 sometime was wasted on the belt—- Old streak of leather—doesn't love me much Because I made 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 reginœ_; 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.

Well, yes." "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 111 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 now. You'll miss your train. Good-bye." He flung his arms around his face.

THE HILL WIFE

LONELINESS (_Her Word_)

One ought not to have to care So much as you and I Care when the birds come round the house To seem to say good-bye;

Or care so much when they come back With whatever it is they sing; The truth being we are as much Too glad for the one thing

As we are too sad for the other here—- With birds that fill their breasts But with each other and themselves And their built or driven nests.

HOUSE FEAR

Always—-I tell you this they learned—- Always at night when they returned To the lonely house from far away To lamps unlighted and fire gone gray, They learned to rattle the lock and key To give whatever might chance to be Warning and time to be off in flight: And preferring the out- to the in-door night, They learned to leave the house-door wide Until they had lit the lamp inside.

THE SMILE (_Her Word_)

I didn't like the way he went away. That smile! It never came of being gay. Still, he smiled—-did you see him?—-I was sure! Perhaps because we gave him only bread And the wretch knew from that that we were poor. Perhaps because he let us give instead Of seizing from us as he might have seized. Perhaps he mocked at us for being wed, Or being very young (and he was pleased To have a vision of us old and dead). I wonder how far down the road he's got. He's watching from the woods as like as not.

THE OFT-REPEATED DREAM

She had no saying dark enough For the dark pine that kept Forever trying the window-latch Of the room where they slept.

The tireless but ineffectual hands That with every futile pass Made the great tree seem as a little bird Before the mystery of glass!

It never had been inside the room, And only one of the two Was afraid in an oft-repeated dream Of what the tree might do.

THE IMPULSE

It was too lonely for her there, And too wild, And since there were but two of them, And no child,

And work was little in the house, She was free, And followed where he furrowed field, Or felled tree.

She rested on a log and tossed The fresh chips, With a song only to herself On her lips.

And once she went to break a bough Of black alder. She strayed so far she scarcely heard When he called her—-

And didn't answer—-didn't speak—- Or return. She stood, and then she ran and hid In the fern.

He never found her, though he looked Everywhere, And he asked at her mother's house Was she there.

Sudden and swift and light as that The ties gave, And he learned of finalities Besides the grave.

"OUT, OUT----"

The buzz-saw snarled and rattled in the yard And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood, Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it. And from there those that lifted eyes could count Five mountain ranges one behind the other Under the sunset far into Vermont. And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled, As it ran light, or had to bear a load. And nothing happened: day was all but done. Call it a day, I wish they might have said To please the boy by giving him the half hour That a boy counts so much when saved from work. His sister stood beside them in her apron To tell them "Supper." At the word, the saw, As if to prove saws knew what supper meant, Leaped out at the boy's hand, or seemed to leap—- He must have given the hand. However it was, Neither refused the meeting. But the hand! The boy's first outcry was a rueful laugh. As he swung toward them holding up the hand Half in appeal, but half as if to keep The life from spilling. Then the boy saw all—- Since he was old enough to know, big boy Doing a man's work, though a child at heart—- He saw all spoiled. "Don't let him cut my hand off—- The doctor, when he comes. Don't let him, sister!" So. But the hand was gone already. The doctor put him in the dark of ether. He lay and puffed his lips out with his breath. And then—-the watcher at his pulse took fright. No one believed. They listened at his heart. Little—-less—-nothing!—-and that ended it. No more to build on there. And they, since they Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.

III

PUTTING IN THE SEED

You come to fetch me from my work to-night When supper's on the table, and we'll see If I can leave off burying the white Soft petals fallen from the apple tree (Soft petals, yes, but not so barren quite, Mingled with these, smooth bean and wrinkled pea); And go along with you ere you lose sight Of what you came for and become like me, Slave to a springtime passion for the earth. How Love bums through the Putting in the Seed On through the watching for that early birth When, just as the soil tarnishes with weed, The sturdy seedling with arched body comes Shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs.

GOING FOR WATER

The well was dry beside the door, And so we went with pail and can Across the fields behind the house To seek the brook if still it ran;

Not loth to have excuse to go, Because the autumn eve was fair (Though chill), because the fields were ours, And by the brook our woods were there.

We ran as if to meet the moon That slowly dawned behind the trees, The barren boughs without the leaves, Without the birds, without the breeze.

But once within the wood, we paused Like gnomes that hid us from the moon, Ready to run to hiding new With laughter when she found us soon.

Each laid on other a staying hand To listen ere we dared to look, And in the hush we joined to make We heard, we knew we heard the brook.

A note as from a single place, A slender tinkling fall that made Now drops that floated on the pool Like pearls, and now a silver blade.

MOWING