| |
| MARY sat musing on the lamp-flame at the table | |
| Waiting for Warren. When she heard his step, | |
| She ran on tip-toe down the darkened passage | |
| To meet him in the doorway with the news | |
| And put him on his guard. “Silas is back.” | 5 |
| She pushed him outward with her through the door | |
| And shut it after her. “Be kind,” she said. | |
| She took the market things from Warren’s arms | |
| And set them on the porch, then drew him down | |
| To sit beside her on the wooden steps. | 10 |
| |
| “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 | 15 |
| 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, | 20 |
| So he won’t have to beg and be beholden.’ | |
| ‘All right,’ I say, ‘I can’t afford to pay | |
| Any fixed wages, though I wish I could.’ | |
| ‘Someone else can.’ ‘Then someone else will have to.’ | |
| I shouldn’t mind his bettering himself | 25 |
| If that was what it was. You can be certain, | |
| When he begins like that, there’s someone at 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.” | 30 |
| |
| “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, | 35 |
| 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?” | 40 |
| |
| “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?” | 45 |
| |
| “But little.” | |
| |
| “Anything? Mary, confess | |
| He said he’d come to ditch the meadow for me.” | |
| |
| “Warren!” | |
| |
| “But did he? I just want to know.” | 50 |
| |
| “Of course he did. What would you have him say? | |
| Surely you wouldn’t grudge the poor old man | |
| Some humble way to save his self-respect. | |
| He added, if you really care to know, | |
| He meant to clear the upper pasture, too. | 55 |
| That sounds like something you have heard before? | |
| Warren, I wish you could have heard the way | |
| He 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. | 60 |
| He ran on Harold Wilson—you remember— | |
| The boy you had in haying four years since. | |
| He’s finished school, and teaching in his college. | |
| Silas declares you’ll have to get him back. | |
| He says they two will make a team for work: | 65 |
| 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, though daft | |
| On education—you know how they fought | |
| All through July under the blazing sun, | 70 |
| 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 things linger! | 75 |
| Harold’s young college boy’s assurance piqued him. | |
| After so many years he still keeps finding | |
| Good arguments he sees he might have used. | |
| I sympathise. I know just how it feels | |
| To think of the right thing to say too late. | 80 |
| Harold’s associated in his mind with Latin. | |
| He asked me what I thought of Harold’s saying | |
| He studied Latin like the violin | |
| Because he liked it—that an argument! | |
| He said he couldn’t make the boy believe | 85 |
| He could find water with a hazel prong— | |
| Which showed how much good school had ever done him. | |
| He wanted to go over that. But most of all | |
| He thinks if he could have another chance | |
| To teach him how to build a load of hay——” | 90 |
| |
| “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 it | |
| In the unloading. Silas does that well. | 95 |
| He takes it out in bunches like big birds’ nests. | |
| You never see him standing on the hay | |
| He’s trying to lift, straining to lift himself.” | |
| |
| “He thinks if he could teach him that, he’d be | |
| Some good perhaps to someone in the world. | 100 |
| 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.” | 105 |
| |
| 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 saw | |
| And spread her apron to it. She put out her hand | |
| Among the harp-like morning-glory strings, | 110 |
| 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 this time.” | 115 |
| |
| “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 to us | 120 |
| 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 it | |
| Something you somehow haven’t to deserve.” | 125 |
| |
| 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 miles | 130 |
| As 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.” | 135 |
| |
| “We know it though.” | |
| |
| “I think his brother ought to help, of course. | |
| I’ll see to that if there is need. He ought of right | |
| To take him in, and might be willing to— | |
| He may be better than appearances. | 140 |
| But have some pity on Silas. Do you think | |
| If 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.” | 145 |
| |
| “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 | 150 |
| As anyone. He won’t be made ashamed | |
| To please his brother, worthless though he is.” | |
| |
| “I can’t think Si ever hurt anyone.” | |
| |
| “No, but he hurt my heart the way he lay | |
| And rolled his old head on that sharp-edged chair-back. | 155 |
| 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’s broken. | |
| His working days are done; I’m sure of it.” | 160 |
| |
| “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. | 165 |
| 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 dim row, | 170 |
| The moon, the little silver cloud, and she. | |
| |
| Warren returned—too soon, it seemed to her, | |
| Slipped to her side, caught up her hand and waited. | |
| |
| “Warren,” she questioned. | |
| |
| “Dead,” was all he answered. | 175 |
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