north of bostonby robert frost part 1 to e. m. f.this book of people the pasture i'm going out to clean the pasture spring;i'll only stop to rake the leaves away (and wait to watch the water clear, i may):i sha'n't be gone long.—you come too. i'm going out to fetch the little calfthat's standing by the mother. it's so young, it totters when she licks it with her tongue.i sha'n't be gone long.—you come too. contents
mending wallthe death of the hired man the mountaina hundred collars home burialthe black cottage blueberriesa servant to servants after apple-pickingthe code the generations of menthe housekeeper the fearthe self-seeker the wood-pilegood hours mending wall
something there is that doesn't love a wall,that sends the frozen-ground-swell under it, and spills the upper boulders in the sun;and makes gaps even two can pass abreast. the work of hunters is another thing:i have come after them and made repair where they have left not one stone on a stone,but they would have the rabbit out of hiding, to please the yelping dogs. the gaps i mean,no one has seen them made or heard them made, but at spring mending-time we find them there.i let my neighbour know beyond the hill; and on a day we meet to walk the lineand set the wall between us once again. we keep the wall between us as we go.to each the boulders that have fallen to each. and some are loaves and some so nearly ballswe have to use a spell to make them balance:
"stay where you are until our backs are turned!"we wear our fingers rough with handling them. oh, just another kind of out-door game,one on a side. it comes to little more: there where it is we do not need the wall:he is all pine and i am apple orchard. my apple trees will never get acrossand eat the cones under his pines, i tell him.he only says, "good fences make good neighbours." spring is the mischief in me, and i wonderif i could put a notion in his head: "why do they make good neighbours? isn't itwhere there are cows? but here there are no cows.before i built a wall i'd ask to know what i was walling in or walling out,and to whom i was like to give offence.
something there is that doesn't love a wall,that wants it down." i could say "elves" to him,but it's not elves exactly, and i'd rather he said it for himself. i see him therebringing a stone grasped firmly by the top in each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.he moves in darkness as it seems to me, not of woods only and the shade of trees.he will not go behind his father's saying, and he likes having thought of it so wellhe says again, "good fences make good neighbours." the death of the hired man mary sat musing on the lamp-flame at the tablewaiting for warren. when she heard his step, she ran on tip-toe down the darkened passageto meet him in the doorway with the news
and put him on his guard. "silas is back."she pushed him outward with her through the doorand shut it after her. "be kind," she said. she took the market things from warren's armsand set them on the porch, then drew him down to sit beside her on the wooden steps."when was i ever anything but kind to him? but i'll not have the fellow back," he said."i told him so last haying, didn't i? 'if he left then,' i said, 'that ended it.'what good is he? who else will harbour him at his age for the little he can do?what help he is there's no depending on. off he goes always when i need him most.'he thinks he ought to earn a little pay, enough at least to buy tobacco with,so he won't have to beg and be beholden.'
'all right,' i say, 'i can't afford to payany fixed wages, though i wish i could.' 'someone else can.' 'then someone else willhave to.' i shouldn't mind his bettering himselfif that was what it was. you can be certain, when he begins like that, there's someoneat him trying to coax him off with pocket-money,—in haying time, when any help is scarce. in winter he comes back to us. i'm done.""sh! not so loud: he'll hear you," mary said. "i want him to: he'll have to soon or late.""he's worn out. he's asleep beside the stove. when i came up from rowe's i found him here,huddled against the barn-door fast asleep, a miserable sight, and frightening, too—you needn't smile—i didn't recognise him—
i wasn't looking for him—and he's changed.wait till you see." "where did you say he'd been?""he didn't say. i dragged him to the house, and gave him tea and tried to make him smoke.i tried to make him talk about his travels. nothing would do: he just kept nodding off.""what did he say? did he say anything?" "but little.""anything? mary, confess he said he'd come to ditch the meadow forme." "warren!""but did he? i just want to know." "of course he did. what would you have himsay? surely you wouldn't grudge the poor old mansome humble way to save his self-respect.
he added, if you really care to know,he meant to clear the upper pasture, too. that sounds like something you have heardbefore? warren, i wish you could have heard the wayhe jumbled everything. i stopped to look two or three times—he made me feel so queer—to see if he was talking in his sleep. he ran on harold wilson—you remember—the boy you had in haying four years since. he's finished school, and teaching in hiscollege. silas declares you'll have to get him back.he says they two will make a team for work: between them they will lay this farm as smooth!the way he mixed that in with other things. he thinks young wilson a likely lad, thoughdaft
on education—you know how they foughtall through july under the blazing sun, silas up on the cart to build the load,harold along beside to pitch it on." "yes, i took care to keep well out of earshot.""well, those days trouble silas like a dream. you wouldn't think they would. how some thingslinger! harold's young college boy's assurance piquedhim. after so many years he still keeps findinggood arguments he sees he might have used. i sympathise. i know just how it feelsto think of the right thing to say too late. harold's associated in his mind with latin.he asked me what i thought of harold's saying he studied latin like the violinbecause he liked it—that an argument!
he said he couldn't make the boy believehe could find water with a hazel prong— which showed how much good school had everdone him. he wanted to go over that. but most of allhe thinks if he could have another chance to teach him how to build a load of hay——""i know, that's silas' one accomplishment. he bundles every forkful in its place,and tags and numbers it for future reference, so he can find and easily dislodge itin the unloading. silas does that well. he takes it out in bunches like big birds'nests. you never see him standing on the hayhe's trying to lift, straining to lift himself." "he thinks if he could teach him that, he'dbe
some good perhaps to someone in the world.he hates to see a boy the fool of books. poor silas, so concerned for other folk,and nothing to look backward to with pride, and nothing to look forward to with hope,so now and never any different." part of a moon was falling down the west,dragging the whole sky with it to the hills. its light poured softly in her lap. she sawand spread her apron to it. she put out her handamong the harp-like morning-glory strings, taut with the dew from garden bed to eaves,as if she played unheard the tenderness that wrought on him beside her in the night."warren," she said, "he has come home to die: you needn't be afraid he'll leave you thistime."
"home," he mocked gently."yes, what else but home? it all depends on what you mean by home.of course he's nothing to us, any more than was the hound that came a stranger tous out of the woods, worn out upon the trail.""home is the place where, when you have to go there,they have to take you in." "i should have called itsomething you somehow haven't to deserve." warren leaned out and took a step or two,picked up a little stick, and brought it back and broke it in his hand and tossed it by."silas has better claim on us you think than on his brother? thirteen little milesas the road winds would bring him to his door.
silas has walked that far no doubt to-day.why didn't he go there? his brother's rich, a somebody—director in the bank.""he never told us that." "we know it though.""i think his brother ought to help, of course. i'll see to that if there is need. he oughtof right to take him in, and might be willing to—he may be better than appearances. but have some pity on silas. do you thinkif he'd had any pride in claiming kin or anything he looked for from his brother,he'd keep so still about him all this time?" "i wonder what's between them.""i can tell you. silas is what he is—we wouldn't mind him—but just the kind that kinsfolk can't abide.
he never did a thing so very bad.he don't know why he isn't quite as good as anyone. he won't be made ashamedto please his brother, worthless though he is.""i can't think si ever hurt anyone." "no, but he hurt my heart the way he layand rolled his old head on that sharp-edged chair-back.he wouldn't let me put him on the lounge. you must go in and see what you can do.i made the bed up for him there to-night. you'll be surprised at him—how much he'sbroken. his working days are done; i'm sure of it.""i'd not be in a hurry to say that." "i haven't been. go, look, see for yourself.but, warren, please remember how it is:
he's come to help you ditch the meadow.he has a plan. you mustn't laugh at him. he may not speak of it, and then he may.i'll sit and see if that small sailing cloud will hit or miss the moon."it hit the moon. then there were three there, making a dimrow, the moon, the little silver cloud, and she.warren returned—too soon, it seemed to her, slipped to her side, caught up her hand andwaited. "warren," she questioned."dead," was all he answered. the mountain the mountain held the town as in a shadowi saw so much before i slept there once:
i noticed that i missed stars in the west,where its black body cut into the sky. near me it seemed: i felt it like a wallbehind which i was sheltered from a wind. and yet between the town and it i found,when i walked forth at dawn to see new things, were fields, a river, and beyond, more fields.the river at the time was fallen away, and made a widespread brawl on cobble-stones;but the signs showed what it had done in spring; good grass-land gullied out, and in the grassridges of sand, and driftwood stripped of bark.i crossed the river and swung round the mountain. and there i met a man who moved so slowwith white-faced oxen in a heavy cart, it seemed no hand to stop him altogether."what town is this?" i asked.
"this? lunenburg."then i was wrong: the town of my sojourn, beyond the bridge, was not that of the mountain,but only felt at night its shadowy presence. "where is your village? very far from here?""there is no village—only scattered farms. we were but sixty voters last election.we can't in nature grow to many more: that thing takes all the room!" he moved hisgoad. the mountain stood there to be pointed at.pasture ran up the side a little way, and then there was a wall of trees with trunks:after that only tops of trees, and cliffs imperfectly concealed among the leaves.a dry ravine emerged from under boughs into the pasture."that looks like a path.
is that the way to reach the top from here?—not for this morning, but some other time: i must be getting back to breakfast now.""i don't advise your trying from this side. there is no proper path, but those that havebeen up, i understand, have climbed from ladd's. that's five miles back. you can't mistakethe place: they logged it there last winter some wayup. i'd take you, but i'm bound the other way.""you've never climbed it?" "i've been on the sidesdeer-hunting and trout-fishing. there's a brookthat starts up on it somewhere—i've heard sayright on the top, tip-top—a curious thing.
but what would interest you about the brook,it's always cold in summer, warm in winter. one of the great sights going is to seeit steam in winter like an ox's breath, until the bushes all along its banksare inch-deep with the frosty spines and bristles— you know the kind. then let the sun shineon it!" "there ought to be a view around the worldfrom such a mountain—if it isn't wooded clear to the top." i saw through leafy screensgreat granite terraces in sun and shadow, shelves one could rest a knee on getting up—with depths behind him sheer a hundred feet; or turn and sit on and look out and down,with little ferns in crevices at his elbow. "as to that i can't say. but there's the spring,right on the summit, almost like a fountain.
that ought to be worth seeing.""if it's there. you never saw it?""i guess there's no doubt about its being there. i never saw it.it may not be right on the very top: it wouldn't have to be a long way downto have some head of water from above, and a good distance down might not be noticedby anyone who'd come a long way up. one time i asked a fellow climbing itto look and tell me later how it was." "what did he say?""he said there was a lake somewhere in ireland on a mountain top.""but a lake's different. what about the spring?" "he never got up high enough to see.that's why i don't advise your trying this
side.he tried this side. i've always meant to go and look myself, but you know how it is:it doesn't seem so much to climb a mountain you've worked around the foot of all yourlife. what would i do? go in my overalls,with a big stick, the same as when the cows haven't come down to the bars at milking time?or with a shotgun for a stray black bear? 'twouldn't seem real to climb for climbingit." "i shouldn't climb it if i didn't want to—not for the sake of climbing. what's its name?" "we call it hor: i don't know if that's right.""can one walk around it? would it be too far?" "you can drive round and keep in lunenburg,but it's as much as ever you can do,
the boundary lines keep in so close to it.hor is the township, and the township's hor— and a few houses sprinkled round the foot,like boulders broken off the upper cliff, rolled out a little farther than the rest.""warm in december, cold in june, you say?" "i don't suppose the water's changed at all.you and i know enough to know it's warm compared with cold, and cold compared withwarm. but all the fun's in how you say a thing.""you've lived here all your life?" "ever since horwas no bigger than a——" what, i did not hear.he drew the oxen toward him with light touches of his slim goad on nose and offside flank,gave them their marching orders and was moving.
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 homesteadand sends the children down there with their motherto run wild in the summer—a little wild. sometimes he joins them for a day or twoand sees old friends he somehow can't get near.they meet him in the general store at night, pre-occupied 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 trainand had four hours to wait at woodsville junction after eleven o'clock at night. too tiredto 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 wanderinglamps and cars that shook and rattle—and one hotel."you say 'unless.'" "unless you wouldn't mindsharing 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 ofstairs 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 yourroom." "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 thefoot. "this will be yours. good-night," he said,and went.
"lafe was the name, i think?""yes, layfayette. 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 ofnow that i had on my mind to ask the firstman 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 forit. i just found what the matter was to-night:i've been a-choking like a nursery tree when it outgrows the wire band of its nametag. 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 menervous." 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 whitebed. you can't rest that way. let me pull yourshoes off." "don't touch me, please—i say, don't touchme, 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 youif 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 youand 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 trustyou?" "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 timeall 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 haveit. 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 theydo." "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 gardenpatches stripped to bare ground, the apple treesto whips and poles. there's nobody about. the chimney, though, keeps up a good brisksmoking. and i lie back and ride. i take the reinsonly 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 houseas 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 wantanything 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 toask 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—mayneed them." "not till i shrink, when they'll be out ofstyle." "but really i—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 doorwhen i come back so you'll know who it is. there's nothing i'm afraid of like scaredpeople. 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. end of part 1 part 2home burial he saw her from the bottom of the stairsbefore she saw him. she was starting down,
looking back over her shoulder at some fear.she took a doubtful step and then undid it to raise herself and look again. he spokeadvancing toward her: "what is it you see from up there always—for i want to know."she turned and sank upon her skirts at that, and her face changed from terrified to dull.he said to gain time: "what is it you see," mounting until she cowered under him."i will find out now—you must tell me, dear." she, in her place, refused him any helpwith the least stiffening of her neck and silence.she let him look, sure that he wouldn't see, blind creature; and a while he didn't see.but at last he murmured, "oh," and again, "oh.""what is it—what?" she said.
"just that i see.""you don't," she challenged. "tell me what it is.""the wonder is i didn't see at once. i never noticed it from here before.i must be wonted to it—that's the reason. the little graveyard where my people are!so small the window frames the whole of it. not so much larger than a bedroom, is it?there are three stones of slate and one of marble,broad-shouldered little slabs there in the sunlighton the sidehill. we haven't to mind those. but i understand: it is not the stones,but the child's mound——" "don't, don't, don't, don't," she cried.she withdrew shrinking from beneath his arm
that rested on the banister, and slid downstairs;and turned on him with such a daunting look, he said twice over before he knew himself:"can't a man speak of his own child he's lost?" "not you! oh, where's my hat? oh, i don'tneed it! i must get out of here. i must get air.i don't know rightly whether any man can." "amy! don't go to someone else this time.listen to me. i won't come down the stairs." he sat and fixed his chin between his fists."there's something i should like to ask you, dear.""you don't know how to ask it." "help me, then."her fingers moved the latch for all reply. "my words are nearly always an offence.i don't know how to speak of anything
so as to please you. but i might be taughti should suppose. i can't say i see how. a man must partly give up being a manwith women-folk. we could have some arrangement by which i'd bind myself to keep hands offanything special you're a-mind to name. though i don't like such things 'twixt thosethat love. two that don't love can't live together withoutthem. but two that do can't live together with them."she moved the latch a little. "don't—don't go.don't carry it to someone else this time. tell me about it if it's something human.let me into your grief. i'm not so much unlike other folks as your standing thereapart would make me out. give me my chance.
i do think, though, you overdo it a little.what was it brought you up to think it the thingto take your mother-loss of a first child so inconsolably—in the face of love.you'd think his memory might be satisfied——" "there you go sneering now!""i'm not, i'm not! you make me angry. i'll come down to you.god, what a woman! and it's come to this, a man can't speak of his own child that'sdead." "you can't because you don't know how.if you had any feelings, you that dug with your own hand—how could you?—hislittle grave; i saw you from that very window there,making the gravel leap and leap in air,
leap up, like that, like that, and land solightly and roll back down the mound beside the hole.i thought, who is that man? i didn't know you.and i crept down the stairs and up the stairs to look again, and still your spade kept lifting.then you came in. i heard your rumbling voice out in the kitchen, and i don't know why,but i went near to see with my own eyes. you could sit there with the stains on yourshoes of the fresh earth from your own baby's graveand talk about your everyday concerns. you had stood the spade up against the walloutside there in the entry, for i saw it." "i shall laugh the worst laugh i ever laughed.i'm cursed. god, if i don't believe i'm cursed."
"i can repeat the very words you were saying.'three foggy mornings and one rainy day will rot the best birch fence a man can build.'think of it, talk like that at such a time! what had how long it takes a birch to rotto do with what was in the darkened parlour. you couldn't care! the nearest friends cango with anyone to death, comes so far shortthey might as well not try to go at all. no, from the time when one is sick to death,one is alone, and he dies more alone. friends make pretence of following to thegrave, but before one is in it, their minds are turnedand making the best of their way back to life and living people, and things they understand.but the world's evil. i won't have grief so
if i can change it. oh, i won't, i won't!""there, you have said it all and you feel better.you won't go now. you're crying. close the door.the heart's gone out of it: why keep it up. amy! there's someone coming down the road!""you—oh, you think the talk is all. i must go—somewhere out of this house. how can i make you——""if—you—do!" she was opening the door wider."where do you mean to go? first tell me that. i'll follow and bring you back by force. iwill!—" the black cottage
we chanced in passing by that afternoonto catch it in a sort of special picture among tar-banded ancient cherry trees,set well back from the road in rank lodged grass,the little cottage we were speaking of, a front with just a door between two windows,fresh painted by the shower a velvet black. we paused, the minister and i, to look.he made as if to hold it at arm's length or put the leaves aside that framed it in."pretty," he said. "come in. no one will care." the path was a vague parting in the grassthat led us to a weathered window-sill. we pressed our faces to the pane. "you see,"he said, "everything's as she left it when she died.her sons won't sell the house or the things
in it.they say they mean to come and summer here where they were boys. they haven't come thisyear. they live so far away—one is out west—it will be hard for them to keep their word. anyway they won't have the place disturbed."a buttoned hair-cloth lounge spread scrolling armsunder a crayon portrait on the wall done sadly from an old daguerreotype."that was the father as he went to war. she always, when she talked about war,sooner or later came and leaned, half knelt against the lounge beside it, though i doubtif such unlifelike lines kept power to stir anything in her after all the years.he fell at gettysburg or fredericksburg,
i ought to know—it makes a difference which:fredericksburg wasn't gettysburg, of course. but what i'm getting to is how forsakena little cottage this has always seemed; since she went more than ever, but before—i don't mean altogether by the lives that had gone out of it, the father first,then the two sons, till she was left alone. (nothing could draw her after those two sons.she valued the considerate neglect she had at some cost taught them after years.)i mean by the world's having passed it by— as we almost got by this afternoon.it always seems to me a sort of mark to measure how far fifty years have broughtus. why not sit down if you are in no haste?these doorsteps seldom have a visitor.
the warping boards pull out their own oldnails with none to tread and put them in their place.she had her own idea of things, the old lady. and she liked talk. she had seen garrisonand whittier, and had her story of them. one wasn't long in learning that she thoughtwhatever else the civil war was for it wasn't just to keep the states together,nor just to free the slaves, though it did both.she wouldn't have believed those ends enough to have given outright for them all she gave.her giving somehow touched the principle that all men are created free and equal.and to hear her quaint phrases—so removed from the world's view to-day of all thosethings.
that's a hard mystery of jefferson's.what did he mean? of course the easy way is to decide it simply isn't true.it may not be. i heard a fellow say so. but never mind, the welshman got it plantedwhere it will trouble us a thousand years. each age will have to reconsider it.you couldn't tell her what the west was saying, and what the south to her serene belief.she had some art of hearing and yet not hearing the latter wisdom of the world.white was the only race she ever knew. black she had scarcely seen, and yellow never.but how could they be made so very unlike by the same hand working in the same stuff?she had supposed the war decided that. what are you going to do with such a person?strange how such innocence gets its own way.
i shouldn't be surprised if in this worldit were the force that would at last prevail. do you know but for her there was a timewhen to please younger members of the church, or rather say non-members in the church,whom we all have to think of nowadays, i would have changed the creed a very little?not that she ever had to ask me not to; it never got so far as that; but the barethought of her old tremulous bonnet in the pew,and of her half asleep was too much for me. why, i might wake her up and startle her.it was the words 'descended into hades' that seemed too pagan to our liberal youth.you know they suffered from a general onslaught. and well, if they weren't true why keep righton
saying them like the heathen? we could dropthem. only—there was the bonnet in the pew.such a phrase couldn't have meant much to her.but suppose she had missed it from the creed as a child misses the unsaid good-night,and falls asleep with heartache—how should i feel?i'm just as glad she made me keep hands off, for, dear me, why abandon a beliefmerely because it ceases to be true. cling to it long enough, and not a doubtit will turn true again, for so it goes. most of the change we think we see in lifeis due to truths being in and out of favour. as i sit here, and oftentimes, i wishi could be monarch of a desert land
i could devote and dedicate foreverto the truths we keep coming back and back to.so desert it would have to be, so walled by mountain ranges half in summer snow,no one would covet it or think it worth the pains of conquering to force change on.scattered oases where men dwelt, but mostly sand dunes held loosely in tamariskblown over and over themselves in idleness. sand grains should sugar in the natal dewthe babe born to the desert, the sand storm retard mid-waste my cowering caravans—"there are bees in this wall." he struck the clapboards,fierce heads looked out; small bodies pivoted. we rose to go. sunset blazed on the windows.
blueberries "you ought to have seen what i saw on my wayto 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 drumin 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 fallthe 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 fernor grass-blade is left, not to mention a stick, and presto, they're up all around you as thickand hard to explain as a conjuror's trick." "it must be on charcoal they fatten theirfruit. 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 thewind,
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 chewinkto gather them for him—you know what he is.he won't make the fact that they're rightfully hisan 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 fieldhad 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 hefrown?" "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 tellby 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 couldname." "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 theydon't eat they sell in the store and buy shoes for theirfeet." "who cares what they say? it's a nice wayto 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 themknow of where all the berries and other thingsgrow, cranberries in bogs and raspberries on topof 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 earthto ask if he knew any fruit to be had for the picking. the rascal, he said he'dbe glad to tell if he knew. but the year had beenbad. there had been some berries—but those wereall gone. he didn't say where they had been. he wenton:
'i'm sure—i'm sure'—as polite as couldbe. he spoke to his wife in the door, 'let mesee, mame, 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 lookround, 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 birdaway from its nest, and i said it was you. 'well, one of us is.' for complaining it flewaround and around us. and then for a while we picked, till i feared you had wandereda mile, and i thought i had lost you. i lifted a shouttoo loud for the distance you were, it turned out,for when you made answer, your voice was as lowas talking—you stood up beside me, you know." "we sha'n't have the place to ourselves toenjoy—
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'tcomplain. you ought to have seen how it looked in therain, the fruit mixed with water in layers of leaves,like two kinds of jewels, a vision for thieves." a servant to servants i didn't make you know how glad i wasto have you come and camp here on our land. i promised myself to get down some dayand see the way you lived, but i don't know! with a houseful of hungry men to feedi guess you'd find.... it seems to me
i can't express my feelings any morethan 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 surewhether i am glad, sorry, or anything. there's nothing but a voice-like left insidethat 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 milesstraight 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 andwhiter. it took my mind off doughnuts and soda biscuitto step outdoors and take the water dazzle a sunny morning, or take the rising windabout my face and body and through my wrapper, when a storm threatened from the dragon'sden, 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 rentthem, sometimes we don't. we've a good piece ofshore that ought to be worth something, and mayyet. 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 rightwith 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 menand washing dishes after them—from doing things over and over that just won't staydone. by good rights i ought not to have so muchput on me, but there seems no other way.
len says one steady pull more ought to doit. 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 forme. it was his plan our moving over inbeside the lake from where that day i showed youwe 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 tosun, 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 yearit'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 talkwhile i fry their bacon. much they care! no more put out in what they do or saythan 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 safeto have inside the house with doors unlocked. i'm not afraid of them, though, if they'renot
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 kepthim locked up for years back there at the oldfarm. 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 goodto 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 formof 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 itended in father's building him a sort of cage,or room within a room, of hickory poles, like stanchions in the barn, from floor toceiling,— 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 paradedwith his clothes on his arm—all of his clothes. cruel—it sounds. i 'spose they did the bestthey 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 dreadfulby his shouts in the night. he'd shout and shoutuntil 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 untilhis hands had worn them smooth as any ox-bow. and then he'd crow as if he thought that child'splay— 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 wasthere 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-viewsand 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 likeit, 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 awayfrom 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 alwaysthat; but behind's behind. the worst that you cando 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. end of part 2�
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