Part 5

Not yesterday I learned to know The love of bare November days Before the coming of the snow, But it were vain to tell her so, And they are better for her praise.

RANGE-FINDING

The battle rent a cobweb diamond-strung And cut a flower beside a ground bird's nest Before it stained a single human breast. The stricken flower bent double and so hung. And still the bird revisited her young. A butterfly its fall had dispossessed A moment sought in air his flower of rest, Then lightly stooped to it and fluttering clung.

On the bare upland pasture there had spread O'ernight 'twixt mullein stalks a wheel of thread And straining cables wet with silver dew. A sudden passing bullet shook it dry. The indwelling spider ran to greet the fly, But finding nothing, sullenly withdrew.

OCTOBER

O hushed October morning mild, Thy leaves have ripened to the fall; To-morrow's wind, if it be wild, Should waste them all. The crows above the forest call; To-morrow they may form and go. O hushed October morning mild, Begin the hours of this day slow, Make the day seem to us less brief. Hearts not averse to being beguiled, Beguile us in the way you know; Release one leaf at break of day; At noon release another leaf; One from our trees, one far away; Retard the sun with gentle mist; Enchant the land with amethyst. Slow, slow! For the grapes' sake, if they were all, Whose leaves already are burnt with frost, Whose clustered fruit must else be lost—- For the grapes' sake along the wall.

TO THE THAWING WIND

Come with rain, O loud Southwester! Bring the singer, bring the nester; Give the buried flower a dream; Make the settled snow-bank steam; Find the brown beneath the white; But whate'er you do to-night, Bathe my window, make it flow, Melt it as the ice will go; Melt the glass and leave the sticks Like a hermit's crucifix; Burst into my narrow stall; Swing the picture on the wall; Run the rattling pages o'er; Scatter poems on the floor; Turn the poet out of door.

VII

A TIME TO TALK

When a friend calls to me from the road And slows his horse to a meaning walk I don't stand still and look around On all the hills I haven't hoed, And shout from where I am, What is it? No, not as there is a time to talk. I thrust my hoe in the mellow ground, Blade-end up and five feet tall, And plod: I go up to the stone wall For a friendly visit.

THE CODE

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 was 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 jag 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 those 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 realised 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 HUNDRED COLLARS

Lancaster bore him—-such a little town, Such a great man. It doesn't see him often Of late years, though he keeps the old homestead And sends the children down there with their mother To run wild in the summer—-a little wild. Sometimes he joins them for a day or two And sees old friends he somehow can't get near. They meet him in the general store at night, Preoccupied with formidable mail, Rifling a printed letter as he talks. They seem afraid. He wouldn't have it so: Though a great scholar, he's a democrat, If not at heart, at least on principle. Lately when coming up to Lancaster His train being late he missed another train And had four hours to wait at Woodsville Junction After eleven o'clock at night. Too tired To think of sitting such an ordeal out, He turned to the hotel to find a bed.

"No room," the night clerk said. "Unless----" Woodsville's a place of shrieks and wandering lamps And cars that shock and rattle—-and _one_ hotel.

"You say 'unless.'"

"Unless you wouldn't mind Sharing a room with someone else."

"Who is it?"

"A man.

"So I should hope. What kind of man?"

"I know him: he's all right. A man's a man. Separate beds of course you understand."

The night clerk blinked his eyes and dared him on. "Who's that man sleeping in the office chair? Has he had the refusal of my chance?"

"He was afraid of being robbed or murdered. What do you say?"

"I'll have to have a bed."

The night clerk led him up three flights of stairs And down a narrow passage full of doors, At the last one of which he knocked and entered, "Lafe, here's a fellow wants to share your room."

"Show him this way. I'm not afraid of him, I'm not so drunk I can't take care of myself." The night clerk clapped a bedstead on the foot. "This will be yours. Good-night," he said, and went.

"Lafe was the name, I think?"

"Yes, _Lay_fayette. You got it the first time. And yours?"

"Magoon.

Doctor Magoon."

"A Doctor?"

"Well, a teacher."

"Professor Square-the-circle-till-you're-tired? Hold on, there's something I don't think of now That I had on my mind to ask the first Man that knew anything I happened in with. I'll ask you later—-don't let me forget it." The Doctor looked at Lafe and looked away. A man? A brute. Naked above the waist, He sat there creased and shining in the light, Fumbling the buttons in a well-starched shirt. "I'm moving into a size-larger shirt. I've felt mean lately; mean's no name for it. I just found what the matter was to-night: I've been a-choking like a nursery tree When it outgrows the wide band of its name tag. I blamed it on the hot spell we've been having. 'Twas nothing but my foolish hanging back, Not liking to own up I'd grown a size. Number eighteen this is. What size do you wear?"

The Doctor caught his throat convulsively. "Oh—-ah—-fourteen—-fourteen."

"Fourteen! You say so! I can remember when I wore fourteen. And come to think I must have back at home More than a hundred collars, size fourteen. Too bad to waste them all. You ought to have them. They're yours and welcome; let me send them to you. What makes you stand there on one leg like that? You're not much furtherer than where Kike left you, You act as if you wished you hadn't come. Sit down or lie down friend; you make me nervous."

The Doctor made a subdued dash for it, And propped himself at bay against a pillow.

"Not that way, with your shoes on Kike's white bed. You can't rest that way. Let me pull your shoes off."

"Don't touch me, please—-I say, don't touch me, please. I'll not be put to bed by you, my man."

"Just as you say. Have it your own way then. 'My man' is it? You talk like a professor. Speaking of who's afraid of who, however, I'm thinking I have more to lose than you If anything should happen to be wrong. Who wants to cut your number fourteen throat! Let's have a show down as an evidence Of good faith. There is ninety dollars. Come, if you're not afraid."

"_I_'m not afraid. There's five: that's all I carry."

"I can search you? Where are you moving over to? Stay still.

You'd better tuck your money under you And sleep on it the way I always do When I'm with people I don't trust at night."

"Will you believe me if I put it there Right on the counterpane—-that I do trust you?"

"You'd say so, Mister Man.—-I'm a collector. My ninety isn't mine—-you won't think that. I pick it up a dollar at a time All round the country for the _Weekly News_, Published in Bow. You know the _Weekly News?_"

"Known it since I was young."

"Then you know me. Now we are getting on together—-talking. I'm sort of Something for it at the front. My business is to find what people want: They pay for it, and so they ought to have it. Fairbanks, he says to me—-he's editor—- Feel out the public sentiment—-he says. A good deal comes on me when all is said. The only trouble is we disagree In politics: I'm Vermont Democrat—- You know what that is, sort of double-dyed; The _News_ has always been Republican. Fairbanks, he says to me, 'Help us this year,' Meaning by us their ticket. 'No,' I says, 'I can't and won't. You've been in long enough: It's time you turned around and boosted us. You'll have to pay me more than ten a week If I'm expected to elect Bill Taft. I doubt if I could do it anyway.'"

"You seem to shape the paper's policy."

"You see I'm in with everybody, know 'em all. I almost know their farms as well as they do."

"You drive around? It must be pleasant work."

"It's business, but I can't say it's not fun. What I like best's the lay of different farms, Coming out on them from a stretch of woods, Or over a hill or round a sudden corner. I like to find folks getting out in spring, Raking the dooryard, working near the house. Later they get out further in the fields. Everything's shut sometimes except the barn; The family's all away in some back meadow. There's a hay load a-coming—-when it comes. And later still they all get driven in: The fields are stripped to lawn, the garden patches Stripped to bare ground, the apple trees To whips and poles. There's nobody about. The chimney, though, keeps up a good brisk smoking. And I lie back and ride. I take the reins Only when someone's coming, and the mare Stops when she likes: I tell her when to go. I've spoiled Jemima in more ways than one. She's got so she turns in at every house As if she had some sort of curvature, No matter if I have no errand there. She thinks I'm sociable. I maybe am. It's seldom I get down except for meals, though. Folks entertain me from the kitchen doorstep, All in a family row down to the youngest."

"One would suppose they might not be as glad To see you as you are to see them."

"Oh, Because I want their dollar. I don't want Anything they've not got. I never dun. I'm there, and they can pay me if they like. I go nowhere on purpose: I happen by. Sorry there is no cup to give you a drink. I drink out of the bottle—-not your style. Mayn't I offer you----?"

"No, no, no, thank you.

"Just as you say. Here's looking at you then.—- And now I'm leaving you a little while.

You'll rest easier when I'm gone, perhaps—- Lie down—-let yourself go and get some sleep. But first—-let's see—-what was I going to ask you? Those collars—-who shall I address them to, Suppose you aren't awake when I come back?"

"Really, friend, I can't let you. You—-may need them."

"Not till I shrink, when they'll be out of style."

"But really—-I have so many collars."

"I don't know who I rather would have have them. They're only turning yellow where they are. But you're the doctor as the saying is. I'll put the light out. Don't you wait for me: I've just begun the night. You get some sleep. I'll knock so-fashion and peep round the door When I come back so you'll know who it is. There's nothing I'm afraid of like scared people. I don't want you should shoot me in the head. What am I doing carrying off this bottle? There now, you get some sleep."

He shut the door The Doctor slid a little down the pillow.

BLUEBERRIES

"You ought to have seen what I saw on my way To the village, through Mortenson's pasture to-day: Blueberries as big as the end of your thumb, Real sky-blue, and heavy, and ready to drum In the cavernous pail of the first one to come! And all ripe together, not some of them green And some of them ripe! You ought to have seen!"

"I don't know what part of the pasture you mean."

"You know where they cut off the woods—-let me see—- It was two years ago—-or no!—-can it be No longer than that?—-and the following fall The fire ran and burned it all up but the wall."

"Why, there hasn't been time for the bushes to grow. That's always the way with the blueberries, though: There may not have been the ghost of a sign Of them anywhere under the shade of the pine, But get the pine out of the way, you may burn The pasture all over until not a fern Or grass-blade is left, not to mention a stick, And presto, they're up all around you as thick And hard to explain as a conjurer's trick."

"It must be on charcoal they fatten their fruit. I taste in them sometimes the flavour of soot.

And after all really they're ebony skinned: The blue's but a mist from the breath of the wind, A tarnish that goes at a touch of the hand, And less than the tan with which pickers are tanned."

"Does Mortenson know what he has, do you think?"

"He may and not care and so leave the chewink To gather them for him—-you know what he is. He won't make the fact that they're rightfully his An excuse for keeping us other folk out."

"I wonder you didn't see Loren about."

"The best of it was that I did. Do you know, I was just getting through what the field had to show And over the wall and into the road, When who should come by, with a democrat-load Of all the young chattering Lorens alive, But Loren, the fatherly, out for a drive."

"He saw you, then? What did he do? Did he frown?"

"He just kept nodding his head up and down. You know how politely he always goes by. But he thought a big thought—-I could tell by his eye—- Which being expressed, might be this in effect: 'I have left those there berries, I shrewdly suspect, To ripen too long. I am greatly to blame.'"

"He's a thriftier person than some I could name."

"He seems to be thrifty; and hasn't he need, With the mouths of all those young Lorens to feed? He has brought them all up on wild berries, they say, Like birds. They store a great many away. They eat them the year round, and those they don't eat They sell in the store and buy shoes for their feet."

"Who cares what they say? It's a nice way to live, Just taking what Nature is willing to give, Not forcing her hand with harrow and plow."

"I wish you had seen his perpetual bow—- And the air of the youngsters! Not one of them turned, And they looked so solemn-absurdly concerned."

"I wish I knew half what the flock of them know Of where all the berries and other things grow, Cranberries in bogs and raspberries on top Of the boulder-strewn mountain, and when they will crop. I met them one day and each had a flower Stuck into his berries as fresh as a shower; Some strange kind—-they told me it hadn't a name."

"I've told you how once, not long after we came, I almost provoked poor Loren to mirth By going to him of all people on earth To ask if he knew any fruit to be had For the picking. The rascal, he said he'd be glad To tell if he knew. But the year had been bad. There _had_ been some berries—-but those were all gone. He didn't say where they had been. He went on: 'I'm sure—-I'm sure'-—as polite as could be. He spoke to his wife in the door, 'Let me see, Marne, _we_ don't know any good berrying place?' It was all he could do to keep a straight face."

"If he thinks all the fruit that grows wild is for him, He'll find he's mistaken. See here, for a whim, We'll pick in the Mortensons' pasture this year. We'll go in the morning, that is, if it's clear, And the sun shines out warm: the vines must be wet. It's so long since I picked I almost forget How we used to pick berries: we took one look round, Then sank out of sight like trolls underground, And saw nothing more of each other, or heard, Unless when you said I was keeping a bird Away from its nest, and I said it was you. 'Well, one of us is.' For complaining it flew Around and around us. And then for a while We picked, till I feared you had wandered a mile, And I thought I had lost you. I lifted a shout Too loud for the distance you were, it turned out, For when you made answer, your voice was as low As talking—-you stood up beside me, you know."

"We shan't have the place to ourselves to enjoy—- Not likely, when all the young Lorens deploy. They'll be there to-morrow, or even to-night. They won't be too friendly—-they may be polite—- To people they look on as having no right To pick where they're picking. But we won't complain. You ought to have seen how it looked in the rain, The fruit mixed with water in layers of leaves, Like two kinds of jewels, a vision for thieves."

BROWN'S DESCENT OR, THE WILLY-NILLY SLIDE

Brown lived at such a lofty farm That everyone for miles could see His lantern when he did his chores In winter after half-past three.

And many must have seen him make His wild descent from there one night, 'Cross lots, 'cross walls, 'cross everything, Describing rings of lantern light.

Between the house and barn the gale Got him by something he had on And blew him out on the icy crust That cased the world, and he was gone!

Walls were all buried, trees were few: He saw no stay unless he stove A hole in somewhere with his heel. But though repeatedly he strove

And stamped and said things to himself, And sometimes something seemed to yield, He gained no foothold, but pursued His journey down from field to field.

Sometimes he came with arms outspread Like wings, revolving in the scene Upon his longer axis, and With no small dignity of mien.

Faster or slower as he chanced, Sitting or standing as he chose, According as he feared to risk His neck, or thought to spare his clothes,

He never let the lantern drop. And some exclaimed who saw afar The figures he described with it, "I wonder what those signals are

Brown makes at such an hour of night! He's celebrating something strange. I wonder if he's sold his farm, Or been made Master of the Grange."

He reeled, he lurched, he bobbed, he checked; He fell and made the lantern rattle (But saved the light from going out). So half-way down he fought the battle

Incredulous of his own bad luck. And then becoming reconciled To everything, he gave it up And came down like a coasting child.

"Well—-I-—be----" that was all he said, As standing in the river road, He looked back up the slippery slope (Two miles it was) to his abode.

Sometimes as an authority On motor-cars, I'm asked if I Should say our stock was petered out, And this is my sincere reply:

Yankees are what they always were. Don't think Brown ever gave up hope Of getting home again because He couldn't climb that slippery slope;

Or even thought of standing there Until the January thaw Should take the polish off the crust. He bowed with grace to natural law,

And then went round it on his feet, After the manner of our stock; Not much concerned for those to whom, At that particular time o'clock,

It must have looked as if the course He steered was really straight away From that which he was headed for—- Not much concerned for them, I say.

But now he snapped his eyes three times; Then shook his lantern, saying, "Ile's 'Bout out!" and took the long way home By road, a matter of several miles.

VIII

REVELATION

We make ourselves a place apart Behind light words that tease and flout, But oh, the agitated heart Till someone really find us out.

A pity if the case require (Or so we say) that in the end We speak the literal to inspire The understanding of a friend.

But so with all, from babes that play At hide-and-seek to God afar, So all who hide too well away Must speak and tell us where they are.

STORM-FEAR

When the wind works against us in the dark, And pelts with snow The lower chamber window on the east, And whispers with a sort of stifled bark, The beast, "Come out! Come out!"—- It costs no inward struggle not to go, Ah, do! I count our strength, Two and a child, Those of us not asleep subdued to mark How the cold creeps as the fire dies at length,—- How drifts are piled, Dooryard and road ungraded, Till even the comforting barn grows far away, And my heart owns a doubt Whether 'tis in us to arise with day And save ourselves unaided.

BOND AND FREE