NORTH OF BOSTON
By ROBERT FROST
" An authentic original voice in literature/
The Atlantic Monthly
NORTH OF BOSTON
Cloth, $1.25 net ; limp leather,
$2.00 net
A BOY S WILL
Cloth, $1.00 net
MOUNTAIN INTERVAL
Cloth, $1.25 net
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
Publishers New York
NORTH OF BOSTON
BY
ROBERT FROST
AUTHOR or "A BOY S WILL"
NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
First edition, 1914
Second edition, 1915
Reprinted June, August, October, December, 1915
May, 1916
May, 1917
7?^ A/ 6-7
*
A/
TO
E. M. F.
THIS BOOK OP PIOPLE
424609
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 shan t be gone long. You come too.
I m going out to fetch the little calf
That 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
PAGE
MENDING WALL n
THE DEATH OF THE HIRED MAN . . 14
THE MOUNTAIN 24
A HUNDRED COLLARS 31
HOME BURIAL 43
THE BLACK COTTAGE 50
, BLUEBERRIES 56
A SERVANT TO SERVANTS . . . . 64
V/AFTER APPLE-PICKING 73
THE CODE 76
THE GENERATIONS OF MEN ... 83
.THE HOUSEKEEPER 97
THE FEAR in
THE SELF-SEEKER 118
.THE WOOD-PILE . . . ... . .133
IX
Mending Wall takes up the theme where
A Tuft of Flowers in A Boy s Will
laid it down.
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 line
And 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 balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance f*
" Stay where you are until our backs are
turned!"
II
12 NORTH OF BOSTON
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 across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, " Good fences make good neigh
bours."
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head :
" Why do they make good neighbours ? Isn t
it
Where 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 there
Bringing 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,
MENDING WALL 13
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 well
He says again, " Good fences make good neigh
bours."
THE DEATH OF THE HIRED MAN
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."
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.
* 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
M-
THE DEATH OF THE HIRED MAN 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,
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
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."
" 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
16 NORTH OF BOSTON
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 for
me."
"Warren!"
" But did he? I just want to know."
"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.
THE DEATH OF THE HIRED MAN 17
He added, if you really care to know,
He meant to clear the upper pasture, too.
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.
He ran on Harold Wilson you remember
The boy you had in haying four years since.
He s finished school, and teaching in his col
lege.
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, though
daft
On education you know how they fought
All 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."
i8 NORTH OF BOSTON
" Well, those days trouble Silas like a dream.
You wouldn t think they would. How some
things linger !
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.
Harold s associated in his mind with Latin.
He asked me what I thought of Harold s say
ing
He studied Latin like the violin
Because he liked it that an argument !
He said he couldn t make the boy believe
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 "
" 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
THE DEATH OF THE HIRED MAN 19
In the unloading. Silas does that well.
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.
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 saw
And spread her apron to it. She put out her
hand
Among 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 this time."
20 NORTH OF BOSTON
" 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
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 "
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
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."
THE DEATH OF THE HIRED MAN 21
" 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 ought of
right
To take him in, and might be willing to
He may be better than appearances.
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."
" 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 ashamed
To please his brother, worthless though he is."
" I can t think Si ever hurt anyone."
22 NORTH OF BOSTON
" No, but he hurt my heart the way he lay
And 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 s
broken.
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 dim
row,
The moon, the little silver cloud, and she.
THE DEATH OF THE HIRED MAN 23
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.
THE MOUNTAIN
THE mountain held the town as in a shadow
I 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 wall
Behind 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 grass
Ridges of sand, and driftwood stripped of
bark.
I crossed the river and swung round the moun
tain.
And there I met a man who moved so slow
24
THE MOUNTAIN 25
With white- faced oxen in a heavy cart,
It seemed no harm 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 moun
tain,
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
his goad.
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.
26 NORTH OF BOSTON
" 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 have
Been up, I understand, have climbed from
Ladd s.
That s five miles back. You can t mistake the
place :
They logged it there last winter some way up.
I d take you, but I m bound the other way."
" You ve never climbed it ? "
" I ve been on the sides
Deer-hunting and trout-fishing. There s a
brook
That starts up on it somewhere I ve heard
say
Right 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 see
It steam in winter like an ox s breath,
Until the bushes all along its banks
THE MOUNTAIN 27
Are inch-deep with the frosty spines and
bristles
You know the kind. Then let the sun shine on
it!"
" There ought to be a view around the world
From such a mountain if it isn t wooded
Clear to the top." I saw through leafy screens
Great 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 down
28 NORTH OF BOSTON
To have some head of water from above,
And a good distance down might not be noticed
By anyone who d come a long way up.
One time I asked a fellow climbing it
To 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 your life.
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 climbing it."
THE MOUNTAIN 29
" 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 with
warm.
But all the fun s in how you say a thing."
" You ve lived here all your life? "
3 o NORTH OF BOSTON
" Ever since Hor
Was 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 mov
ing-
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 home
stead
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,
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 train
32 NORTH OF BOSTON
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. " Un
less "
Woodsville s a place of shrieks and wandering
lamps
And cars that shook 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."
A HUNDRED COLLARS 33
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
" 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.
34 NORTH OF BOSTON
" Laf e was the name, I think ? "
" Yes, Lafayette.
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 Laf e 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.
A HUNDRED COLLARS 35
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 wire 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?
36 NORTH OF BOSTON
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!
A HUNDRED COLLARS 37
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."
38 NORTH OF BOSTON
" 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."
A HUNDRED COLLARS 39
"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
40 NORTH OF BOSTON
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.
A HUNDRED COLLARS 41
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 ? "
l( 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 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 peo-
pie.
42 NORTH OF BOSTON
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.
HOME BURIAL
HE saw her from the bottom of the stairs
Before 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 spoke
Advancing 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 help
With 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.
43
44 NORTH OF BOSTON
" 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 sun
light
On 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 down
stairs ;
And turned on him with such a daunting look,
HOME BURIAL 45
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 t need 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 taught
I should suppose. I can t say I see how.
A man must partly give up being a man
46 NORTH OF BOSTON
With women- folk. We could have some ar
rangement
By which I d bind myself to keep hands off
Anything special you re a-mind to name.
Though I don t like such things twixt those
that love.
Two that don t love can t live together without
them.
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 there
Apart 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
thing
To take your mother-loss of a first child
So inconsolably in the face of love.
You d think his memory might be satis
fied "
" There you go sneering now ! "
HOME BURIAL 47
" 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 s
dead."
" You can t because you don t know how.
If you had any feelings, you that dug
With your own hand how could you? his
little 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 so lightly
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 your
shoes
Of the fresh earth from your own baby s grave
And talk about your everyday concerns.
48 NORTH OF BOSTON
You had stood the spade up against the wall
Outside 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 rhornings 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 rot
To do with what was in the darkened parlour.
You couldn t care ! The nearest friends can go
With anyone to death, comes so far short
They 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 the
grave,
But before one is in it, their minds are turned
And 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 ! "
HOME BURIAL 49
" 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. I
will!"
THE BLACK COTTAGE
WE chanced in passing by that afternoon
To 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 win
dows,
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 grass
That 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
50
THE BLACK COTTAGE 51
Where they were boys. They haven t come
this year.
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
arms
Under 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 doubt
If 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 forsaken
A 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
52 NORTH OF BOSTON
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 brought
us.
Why not sit down if you are in no haste?
These doorsteps seldom have a visitor.
The warping boards pull out their own old nails
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 Garrison
And Whittier, and had her story of them.
One wasn t long in learning that she thought
Whatever 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 those
things.
That s a hard mystery of Jefferson s.
What did he mean? Of course the easy way
THE BLACK COTTAGE 53
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 planted
Where it will trouble us a thousand years.
Each age will have to reconsider it.
You couldn t tell her what the West was say-
^ ing, t ^ * I / <. t
And wnat the South to her serene belief.
f . t * * / V
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^yery unlike/
By the same hand wording 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 world
It were the force that would at last prevail.
Do you know but for her there was a time
When 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;
54 NORTH OF BOSTON
It never got so far as that; but the bare
thought
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 on
slaught.
And well, if they weren t true why keep right
on
Saying them like the heathen ? We could drop
them.
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 7
feel?
I m just as glad she made me keep hands off,
\For, dear me, why ai^jdpnjaJbelief
[Merely because it ceases to be true.
(Cling to it long enough, and not a doubt
It will turn true again, for so it goes.
Most of the change we think we see in life
THE BLACK COTTAGE 55
Is due to truths being in and out of favour.
As I sit here, and oftentimes, I wish
I could be monarch of a desert land
I could devote and dedicate forever
To 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 tamarisk
Blown over and over themselves in idleness.
Sand grains should sugar in the natal dew
The 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
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
56
BLUEBERRIES 57
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 conjuror 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,
58 NORTH OF BOSTON
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."
BLUEBERRIES 59
" 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
6o NORTH OF BOSTON
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 con
cerned."
"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,
BLUEBERRIES 61
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,
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
62 NORTH OF BOSTON
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 sha n 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 po
lite
To people they look on as having no right
BLUEBERRIES 63
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."
A SERVANT TO SERVANTS
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 fee 1 ,
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
64
A SERVANT TO SERVANTS 65
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
66 NORTH OF BOSTON
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 con
vinced.
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.
A SERVANT TO SERVANTS 67
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
68 NORTH OF BOSTON
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 af
ford,
Rather than send their folks to such a place,
Kept them at home; and Jt^jdoeg^eerrju more
human.
But iFSTnot 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 mis
chief
A SERVANT TO SERVANTS 69
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 ceil
ing,
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 spose 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 dread
ful
By his shouts in the night. He d shout and
shout
Until the strength was shouted out of him,
70 NORTH OF BOSTON
And his voice died down slowly from exhaus
tion.
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 fool
ing
" 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,
A SERVANT TO SERVANTS 71
As I said, for a while but I don t know !
Somehow the change wore out like a prescrip
tion.
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;
72 NORTH OF BOSTON
But behind s behind. The worst that you can
do
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.
AFTER APPLE-PICKING
MY long two-pointed ladder s sticking through
a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there s a barrel that I didn t fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn t pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples : I am drowsing off.
I cannot rub the strangeness from my
sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the drinking
trough
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
73
74 NORTH OF BOSTON
What form my dreaming was about to
take.
Magnified apples appear and disappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear.
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.
And I keep hearing from the cellar bin
The rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.
For I have had too much
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to
touch,
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let
fall.
For all
That struck the earth,
No matter if not bruised or spiked with
stubble,
Went surely to the cider-apple heap
As of no worth.
One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
AFTER APPLE-PICKING 75
Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it s like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep.
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 is there wrong? "
" Something you just now said. *
"What did I say?"
" About our taking pains."
76
THE CODE 77
" 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.
78 NORTH OF BOSTON
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
THE CODE 79
Combed it down with a rake and says, O. K.
Everything went well till we reached the
barn
With a big catch 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 lift
ing.
You wouldn t think a fellow d need much urg
ing
Under these 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.
8o NORTH OF BOSTON
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 realized 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.
THE CODE 8 1
I guess they thought I d spiked him in the
temple
Before I buried him, or I couldn t have man
aged.
They excavated more. Go keep his wife
Out of the barn. Someone looked in a win
dow,
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?"
82 NORTH OF BOSTON
" 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 dis
charge you ? "
"Discharge me? No! He knew I did just
right."
THE GENERATIONS OF MEN
A GOVERNOR it was proclaimed this time,
When all who would come seeking in New
Hampshire
Ancestral memories might come together.
And those of the name Stark gathered in Bow,
A rock-strewn town where farming has fallen
off,
And sprout-lands flourish where the axe has
gone.
Someone had literally run to earth
In an old cellar hole in a by-road
The origin of all the family there.
Thence they were sprung, so numerous a tribe
That now not all the houses left in town
Made shift to shelter them without the help
Of here and there a tent in grove and orchard.
They were at Bow, but that was not enough :
Nothing would do but they must fix a day
To stand together on the crater s verge
That turned them on the world, and try to
fathom
83
84 NORTH OF BOSTON
The past and get some strangeness out of it.
But rain spoiled all. The day began uncertain,
With clouds low trailing and moments of rain
that misted.
The young folk held some hope out to each
other
Till well toward noon when the storm settled
down
With a swish in the grass. " What if the
others
Are there," they said. " It isn t going to rain."
Only one from a farm not far away
Strolled thither, not expecting he would find
Anyone else, but out of idleness.
One, and one other, yes, for there were two.
The second round the curving hillside road
Was a girl; and she halted some way off
To reconnoitre, and then made up her mind
At least to pass by and see who he was,
And perhaps hear some word about the
weather.
This was some Stark she didn t know. He
nodded.
" No fete today," he said.
" It looks that way."
THE GENERATIONS OF MEN 85
She swept the heavens, turning on her heel.
" I only idled down."
" I idled down/
Provision there had been for just such meeting
Of stranger cousins, in a family tree
Drawn on a sort of passport with the branch
Of the one bearing it done in detail
Some zealous one s laborious device.
She made a sudden movement toward her
bodice,
As one who clasps her heart. They laughed
together.
"Stark?" he inquired. "No matter for the
proof."
"Yes, Stark. And you?"
" I m Stark." He drew his passport.
You know we might not be and still be
cousins :
The town is full of Chases, Lowes, and Baileys,
All claiming some priority in Starkness.
My mother was a Lane, yet might have married
86 NORTH OF BOSTON
i
Anyone upon earth and still her children
Would have been Starks, and doubtless here
to-day."
" You riddle with your genealogy
Like a Viola. I don t follow you."
" I only mean my mother was a Stark
Several times over, and by marrying father
No more than brought us back into the name."
" One ought not to be thrown into confusion
By a plain statement of relationship,
But I own what you say makes my head spin.
You take my card you seem so good at such
things
And see if you can reckon our cousinship.
Why not take seats here on the cellar wall
And dangle feet among the raspberry vines?"
" Under the shelter of the family tree."
" Just so that ought to be enough protection."
" Not from the rain. I think it s going to
THE GENERATIONS OF MEN 87
" It s raining."
" No, it s misting; let s be fair.
Does the rain seem to you to cool the eyes?"
The situation was like this : the road
Bowed outward on the mountain half-way up,
And disappeared and ended not far off.
No one went home that way. The only house
Beyond where they were was a shattered seed-
pod.
And below roared a brook hidden in trees,
The sound of which was silence for the place.
This he sat listening to till she gave judgment.
" On father s side, it seems, we re let me
" Don t be too technical. You have three
cards."
" Four cards, one yours, three mine, one for
each branch
Of the Stark family I m a member of."
88 NORTH OF BOSTON
" D you know a person so related to herself
Is supposed to be mad."
" I may be mad."
" You look so, sitting out here in the rain
Studying genealogy with me
You never saw before. What will we come to
With all this pride of ancestry, we Yankees ?
I think we re all mad. Tell me why we re here
Drawn into town about this cellar hole
Like wild geese on a lake before a storm ?
What do we see in such a hole, I wonder."
" The Indians had a myth of Chicamoztoc,
Which means The Seven Caves that We Came
out of.
This is the pit from which we Starks were
digged."
" You must be learned. That s what you see
in it?"
" And what do you see? "
THE GENERATIONS OF MEN 89
"Yes, what do I see?
First let me look. I see raspberry vines "
" Oh, if you re going to use your eyes, just hear
What / see. It s a little, little boy,
As pale and dim as a match flame in the sun ;
He s groping in the cellar after jam,
He thinks it s dark and it s flooded with day-
light."
" He s nothing. Listen. When I lean like this
I can make out old Grandsir Stark distinctly,
With his pipe in his mouth and his brown
jug-
Bless you, it isn t Grandsir Stark, it s Granny,
But the pipe s there and smoking and the jug.
She s after cider, the old girl, she s thirsty;
Here s hoping she gets her drink and gets out
safely."
" Tell me about her. Does she look like me ? "
t
" She should, shouldn t she, you re so many
times
90 NORTH OF BOSTON
Over descended from her. I believe
She does look like you. Stay the way you are.
The nose is just the same, and so s the chin
Making allowance, making due allowance."
You poor, dear, great, great, great, great
Granny ! "
See that you get her greatness right. Don t
stint her."
" Yes, it s important, though you think it isn t.
I won t be teased. But see how wet I am."
" Yes, you must go ; we can t stay here for
ever.
But wait until I give you a hand up.
A bead of silver water more or less
Strung on your hair won t hurt your summer
looks.
I wanted to try something with the noise
That the brook raises in the empty valley.
We have seen visions now consult the voices.
Something I must have learned riding in trains
THE GENERATIONS OF MEN 91
When I was young. I used the roar
To set the voices speaking out of it,
Speaking or singing, and the band-music play
ing.
Perhaps you have the art of what I mean.
I ve never listened in among the sounds
That a brook makes in such a wild descent.
It ought to give a purer oracle."
" It s as you throw a picture on a screen :
The meaning of it all is out of you ;
The voices give you what you wish to hear."
" Strangely, it s anything they wish to give."
" Then I don t know. It must be strange
enough.
I wonder if it s not your make-believe.
What do you think you re like to hear to-day ? "
" From the sense of our having been together
But why take time for what I m like to hear ?
I ll tell you what the voices really say.
You will do very well right where you are
92 NORTH OF BOSTON
A little longer. I mustn t feel too hurried,
Or I can t give myself to hear the voices."
" Is this some trance you are withdrawing
into?"
;< You must be very still; you mustn t talk."
" I ll hardly breathe."
u The voices seem to say "
" I m waiting."
" Don t ! The voices seem to say :
Call her Nausicaa, the unafraid
Of an acquaintance made adventurously."
" I let you say that on consideration."
" I don t see very well how you can help it.
You want the truth. I speak but by the voices.
You see they know I haven t had your name,
Though what a name should matter between
us "
THE GENERATIONS OF MEN 93
" I shall suspect "
" Be good. The voices say :
Call her Nausicaa, and take a timber
That you shall find lies in the cellar charred
Among the raspberries, and hew and shape
it
For a door-sill or other corner piece
In a new cottage on the ancient spot.
The life is not yet all gone out of it.
And come and make your summer dwelling
here,
And perhaps she will come, still unafraid,
And sit before you in the open door
With flowers in her lap until they fade,
But not come in across the sacred sill "
" I wonder where your oracle is tending.
You can see that there s something wrong with
it,
Or it would speak in dialect. Whose voice
Does it purport to speak in? Not old Grand-
sir s
Nor Granny s, surely. Call up one of them.
They have best right to be heard in this place."
94 NORTH OF BOSTON
" You seem so partial to our great-grand
mother
(Nine times removed. Correct me if I err.)
You will be likely to regard as sacred
Anything she may say. But let me warn you,
Folks in her day were given to plain speaking.
You think you d best tempt her at such a
time?"
" It rests with us always to cut her off."
" Well then, it s Granny speaking : * I dunnow !
Mebbe I m wrong to take it as I do.
There ain t no names quite like the old ones
though,
Nor never will be to my way of thinking.
One mustn t bear too hard on the new comers,
But there s a dite too many of them for com
fort.
I should feel easier if I could see
More of the salt wherewith they re to be salted.
Son, you do as you re told! You take the
timber
It s as sound as the day when it was cut
And begin over There, she d better stop.
You can see what is troubling Granny, though.
THE GENERATIONS OF MEN 9 5
But don t you think we sometimes make too
much
Of the old stock? What counts is the ideals,
And those will bear some keeping still about."
" I can see we are going to be good friends."
" I like your going to be. You said just now
It s going to rain."
" I know, and it was raining.
I let you say all that. But I must go now."
" You let me say it ? on consideration ?
How shall we say good-bye in such a case ? "
"How shall we?"
" Will you leave the way to me? "
" No, I don t trust your eyes. You ve said
enough.
Now give me your hand up. Pick me that
flower."
" Where shall we meet again ? "
96 NORTH OF BOSTON
" Nowhere but here
Once more before we meet elsewhere."
"In rain?"
" It ought to be in rain. Sometime in rain.
In rain to-morrow, shall we, if it rains?
But if we must, in sunshine." So she went.
THE HOUSEKEEPER
/ LET myself in at the kitchen door.
" It s you," she said. " I can t get up. For
give me
Not answering your knock. I can no more
Let people in than I can keep them out.
I m getting too old for my size, I tell them.
My fingers are about all I ve the use of
So s to take any comfort. I can sew :
I help out with this beadwork what I can."
" That s a smart pair of pumps you re beading
there.
Who are they for ? "
You mean ? oh, for some miss.
I can t keep track of other people s daughters.
Lord, if I were to dream of everyone
Whose shoes I primped to dance in ! "
"And where s John?"
97
98 NORTH OF BOSTON
" Haven t you seen him ? Strange what set
you off
To come to his house when he s gone to yours.
You can t have passed each other. I know
what:
He must have changed his mind and gone to
Garlands.
He won t be long in that case. You can wait.
Though what good you can be, or anyone
It s gone so far. You ve heard? Estelle s
run off."
" Yes, what s it all about ? When did she go ? "
" Two weeks since."
" She s in earnest, it appears."
" I m sure she won t come back. She s hiding
somewhere.
I don t know where myself. John thinks I do.
He thinks I only have to say the word,
And she ll come back. But, bless you, I m her
mother
I can t talk to her, and, Lord, if I could ! "
THE HOUSEKEEPER 99
" It will go hard with John. What will he do?
He can t find anyone to take her place."
" Oh, if you ask me that, what will he do?
He gets some sort of bakeshop meals together,
With me to sit and tell him everything,
What s wanted and how much and where it is.
But when I m gone of course I can t stay
here:
Estelle s to take me when she s settled down.
He and I only hinder one another.
I tell them they can t get me through the door,
though :
I ve been built in here like a big church organ.
We ve been here fifteen years."
" That s a long time
To live together and then pull apart.
How do you see him living when you re gone ?
Two of you out will leave an empty house."
" I don t just see him living many years,
Left here with nothing but the furniture.
I hate to think of the old place when we re
gone,
With the brook going by below the yard,
ioo NORTH OF BOSTON
And no one here but hens blowing about.
If he could sell the place, but then, he can t:
No one will ever live on it again.
It s too run down. This is the last of it.
What I think he will do, is let things smash.
He ll sort of swear the time away. He s
awful !
I never saw a man let family troubles
Make so much difference in his man s affairs.
He s just dropped everything. He s like a
child.
I blame his being brought up by his mother.
He s got hay down that s been rained on three
times.
He hoed a little yesterday for me :
I thought the growing things would do him
good.
Something went wrong. I saw him throw the
hoe
Sky-high with both hands. I can see it now
Come here I ll show you in that apple tree.
That s no way for a man to do at his age :
He s fifty-five, you know, if he s a day."
" Aren t you afraid of him? What s that gun
lor?"
THE HOUSEKEEPER 101
" Oh, that s been there for hawks since chick
en-time.
John Hall touch me! Not if he knows his
friends.
11 say that for him, John s no threatener
Like some men folk. No one s afraid of him;
All is, he s made up his mind not to stand
What he has got to stand."
"Where is Estelle?
Couldn t one talk to her? What does she say?
You say you don t know where she is."
" Nor want to !
She thinks if it was bad to live with him,
It must be right to leave him."
"Which is wrong!"
:< Yes, but he should have married her."
" I know."
" The strain s been too much for her all these
years :
I can t explain it any other way. ^
102 NORTH OF BOSTON
It s different with a man, at least with John :
He knows he s kinder than the run of men.
Better than married ought to be as good
As married that s what he has always said.
I know the way he s felt but all the same ! "
" I wonder why he doesn t marry her
And end it."
" Too late now : she wouldn t have him.
He s given her time to think of something else.
That s his mistake. The dear knows my in
terest
Has been to keep the thing from breaking
^ up.
This is a good home : I don t ask for better.
But when I ve said, * Why shouldn t they be
married,
He d say, Why should they ? no more words
than that."
" And after all why should they? John s been
fair
I take it. What was his was always hers.
There was no quarrel about property."
THE HOUSEKEEPER 103
" Reason enough, there was no property.
A friend or two as good as own the farm,
Such as it is. It isn t worth the mortgage."
" I mean Estelle has always held the purse."
" The rights of that are harder to get at.
I guess Estelle and I have filled the purse.
Twas we let him have money, not he us.
John s a bad farmer. I m not blaming him.
Take it year in, year out, he doesn t make
much.
We came here for a home for me, you know,
Estelle to do the housework for the board
Of both of us. But look how it turns out :
She seems to have the housework, and besides
Half of the outdoor work, though as for that,
He d say she does it more because she likes it.
You see our pretty things are all outdoors.
Our hens and cows and pigs are always better
Than folks like us have any business with.
Farmers around twice as well off as we
Haven t as good. They don t go with the
farm.
One thing you can t help liking about John,
104 NORTH OF BOSTON
He s fond of nice things too fond, some
would say.
But Estelle don t complain: she s like him
there.
She wants our hens to be the best there are.
You never saw this room before a show,
Full of lank, shivery, half-drowned birds
In separate coops, having their plumage done.
The smell of the wet feathers in the heat!
You spoke of John s not being safe to stay
with.
You don t know what a gentle lot we are :
We wouldn t hurt a hen ! You ought to see us
Moving a flock of hens from place to place.
We re not allowed to take them upside down,
All we can hold together by the legs.
Two at a time s the rule, one on each arm,
No matter how far and how many times
We have to go."
" You mean that s John s idea."
" And we live up to it ; or I don t know
What childishness he wouldn t give way to.
He manages to keep the upper hand
On his own farm. He s boss. But as to hens :
THE HOUSEKEEPER 105
We fence our flowers in and the hens range.
Nothing s too good for them. We say it
pays.
John likes to tell the offers he has had,
Twenty for this cock, twenty-five for that.
He never takes the money. If they re worth
That much to sell, they re worth as much to
keep.
Bless you, it s all expense, though. Reach me
down
The little tin box on the cupboard shelf,
The upper shelf, the tin box. That s the one.
I ll show you. Here you are."
"What s this?"
" A bill
For fifty dollars for one Langshang cock
Receipted. And the cock is in the yard."
" Not in a glass case, then? "
"He d need a tall one:
He can eat off a barrel from the ground.
He s been in a glass case, as you may say,
The Crystal Palace, London. He s imported.
106 NORTH OF BOSTON
John bought him, and we paid the bill with
beads
Wampum, I call it. Mind, we don t complain.
But you see, don t you, we take care of him."
" And like it, too. It makes it all the worse."
" It seems as if. And that s not all : he s help
less
In ways that I can hardly tell you of.
Sometimes he gets possessed to keep accounts
To see where all the money goes so fast.
You know how men will be ridiculous.
But it s just fun the way he gets bedeviled
If he s untidy now, what will he be ? "
" It makes it all the worse. You must be
blind."
" Estelle s the one. You needn t talk to me."
" Can t you and I get to the root of it ?
What s the real trouble? What will satisfy
her?"
THE HOUSEKEEPER 107
" It s as I say : she s turned from him, that s
all."
"But why, when she s well off? Is it the
neighbours,
Being cut off from friends ? "
" We have our friends.
That isn t it. Folks aren t afraid of us."
" She s let it worry her. You stood the strain,
And you re her mother."
" But I didn t always.
I didn t relish it along at first.
But I got wonted to it. And besides
John said I was too old to have grandchildren.
But what s the use of talking when it s done?
She won t come back it s worse than that
she can t."
" Why do you speak like that? What do you
know?
What do you mean? she s done harm to her
self?""
io8 NORTH OF BOSTON
" I mean she s married married someone
else."
"Oho, oho!"
" You don t believe me."
" Yes, I do,
Only too well. I knew there must be some
thing!
So that wafe what was back. She s bad, that s
all!"
" Bad to get married when she had the
chance? "
" Nonsense ! See what s she done ! But who,
who "
" Who d marry her straight out of such a
mess?
Say it right out no matter for her mother.
The man was found. I d better name no
names.
John himself won t imagine who he is."
THE HOUSEKEEPER 109
" Then it s all up. I think I ll get away.
You ll be expecting John. I pity Estelle ;
I suppose she deserves some pity, too.
You ought to have the kitchen to yourself
To break it to him. You may have the job."
" You needn t think you re going to get away.
John s almost here. I ve had my eye on some
one
Coming down Ryan s Hill. I thought twas
him.
Here he is now. This box ! Put it away.
And this bill."
"What s the hurry? He ll unhitch."
" No, he won t, either. He ll just drop the
reins
And turn Doll out to pasture, rig and all.
She won t get far before the wheels hang up
On something there s no harm. See, there
he is!
My, but he looks as if he must have heard ! "
John tJvrew the door wide but he didn t enter.
" How are you, neighbour? Just the man I m
after.
no NORTH OF BOSTON
Isn t it Hell," he said. " I want to know.
Come out here if you want to hear me talk.
I ll talk to you, old woman, afterward.
I ve got some news that maybe isn t news.
What are they trying to do to me, these two? "
" Do go along with him and stop his shout
ing."
She raised her voice against the closing door:
" Who wants to hear your news, you- dread
ful fool?"
THE FEAR
A LANTERN light from deeper in the barn
Shone on a man and woman in the door
And threw their lurching shadows on a house
Near by, all dark in every glossy window.
A horse s hoof pawed once the hollow floor,
And the back of the gig they stood beside
Moved in a little. The man grasped a
wheel,
The woman spoke out sharply, " Whoa, stand
still ! "
" I saw it just as plain as a white plate,"
She said, " as the light on the dashboard
ran
Along the bushes at the roadside a man s
face.
You must have seen it too."
" I didn t see it.
Are you sure "
"Yes, I m sure!"
in
ii2 NORTH OF BOSTON
"it was a face?"
" Joel, I ll have to look. I can t go in,
I can t, and leave a thing like that unsettled.
Doors locked and curtains drawn will make no
difference.
I always have felt strange when we came home
To the dark house after so long an absence,
And the key rattled loudly into place
Seemed to warn someone to be getting out
At one door as we entered at another.
What if I m right, and someone all the time
Don t hold my arm ! "
" I say it s someone passing."
" You speak as if this were a travelled road.
You forget where we are. What is beyond
That he d be going to or coming from
At such an hour of night, and on foot too.
What was he standing still for in the bushes? "
" It s not so very late it s only dark.
There s more in it than you re inclined to say.
Did he look like ?"
THE FEAR 113
" He looked like anyone.
I ll never rest to-night unless I know.
Give me the lantern."
" You don t want the lantern."
She pushed past him and got it for herself.
" You re not to come," she said. " This is my
business.
If the time s come to face it, I m the one
To put it the right way. He d never dare
Listen! He kicked a stone. Hear that, hear
that!
He s coming towards us. Joel, go in please.
Hark! I don t hear him now. But please
go in."
" In the first place you can t make me believe
it s "
" It is or someone else he s sent to watch.
And now s the time to have it out with him
While we know definitely where he is.
Let him get off and he ll be everywhere
Around us, looking out of trees* and bushes
ii 4 NORTH OF BOSTON
Till I sha n t dare to set a foot outdoors.
And I can t stand it. Joel, let me go ! "
" But it s nonsense to think he d care enough."
" You mean you couldn t understand his car
ing.
Oh, but you see he hadn t had enough
Joel, I won t I won t I promise you.
We mustn t say hard things. You mustn t
either."
" I ll be the one, if anybody goes!
But you give him the advantage with this light.
What couldn t he do to us standing here !
And if to see was what he wanted, why
He has seen all there was to see and gone."
He appeared to forget to keep his hold,
But advanced with her as she crossed the grass.
"What do you want?" she cried to all the
dark.
She stretched up tall to overlook the light
That hung in both hands hot against her skirt.
THE FEAR 115
" There s no one; so you re wrong/ he said.
" There is.
What do you want ? " she cried, and then her
self
Was startled when an answer really came.
" Nothing." It came from well along the
road.
She reached a hand to Joel for support :
The smell of scorching woollen made her faint.
" What are you doing round this house at
night?"
" Nothing." A pause : there seemed no more
to say.
And then the voice again : " You seem afraid.
I saw by the way you whipped up the horse.
I ll just come forward in the lantern light
And let you see."
"Yes, do. Joel, go back!"
ii6 NORTH OF BOSTON
She stood her ground against the noisy steps
That came on, but her body rocked a little.
" You see," the voice said.
" Oh." She looked and looked.
" You don t see I ve a child here by the
hand."
" What s a child doing at this time of
night ?"
" Out walking. Every child should have the
memory
Of at least one long-after-bedtime walk.
What, son?"
" Then I should think you d try to find
Somewhere to walk "
" The highway as it happens
We re stopping for the fortnight down at
Dean s."
THE FEAR 117
" But if that s all Joel you realize
You won t think anything. You understand ?
You understand that we have to be careful.
This is a very, very lonely place.
Joel ! " She spoke as if she couldn t turn.
The swinging lantern lengthened to the ground,
It touched, it struck it, clattered and went out.
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 pur
pose
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.
118
THE SELF-SEEKER 119
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 ceil
ing."
120 NORTH OF BOSTON
" Awful. Why didn t they throw off the belt
Instead of going clear down in the wheel-
pit ?"
" They say some time was wasted on the belt
Old streak of leather doesn t love me much
Because I make 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 1 now with his tail in his
mouth
Snatched right and left across the, silver pul-
/ leys.
/ 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."
THE SELF-SEEKER 121
" You make that sound as if it wasn t so
With everything. Wliat We~livFT5y"w(Ftlie-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 fool
ish/
"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."
122 NORTH OF BOSTON
" 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."
x" 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 :
i Money can t pay me for the loss of them.
Wo, 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 ? "
THE SELF-SEEKER 123
" 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 regince;
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. Cor-
bin.
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
124 NORTH OF BOSTON
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.
" Yes,
Well, 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.
THE SELF-SEEKER 125
Er, let me see. I think I ll 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."
126 NORTH OF BOSTON
" 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 wood-
chuck
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
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? "
THE SELF-SEEKER 127
" 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
128 NORTH OF BOSTON
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.
THE SELF-SEEKER 129
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."
130 NORTH OF BOSTON
" 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.
THE SELF-SEEKER 131
" Now the place where the accident oc
curred "
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
The lawyer gravely capped his fountain pen.
" You re doing the wise thing : you won t re
gret 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."
132 NORTH OF BOSTON
" 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 to now. You ll miss your
train.
Good-bye." He flung his arms around his
face.
THE WOOD-PILE
OUT walking in the frozen swamp one grey day
I paused and said, " I will turn back from here.
No, I will go on farther and we shall see."
The hard snow held me, save where now and
then
One foot went down. The view was all in
lines
Straight up and down of tall slim trees
Too much alike to mark or name a place by
So as to say for certain I was here
Or somewhere else : I was just far from home.
A small bird flew before me. He was careful
To put a tree* between us when he lighted,
And say no word to tell me who he was
Who was so foolish as to think what he
thought.
He thought that I was after him for a
feather
The white one in his tail; like one who takes
Everything said as personal to himself.
133
134 NORTH OF BOSTON
One flight out sideways would have undeceived
him.
And then there was a pile of wood for which
I forgot him and let his little fear
Carry him off the way I might have gone,
Without so much as wishing him good-night.
He went behind it to make his last stand.
jit was a cord of maple, cut and split
And piled and measured, four by four by
eight.
And not another like it could I see.f
No runner tracks in this year s snow looped
near it.
And it was older sure than this year s cut
ting,
Or even last year s or the year s before.
The wood was grey and the bark warping off
it
And the pile somewhat sunken. [ Clematis
Had wound strings round and round it like a
bundle.
What held it though on one side was a tree
Still growing, and on one a .stake and prop,
These latter about to fall. I I thought that
only
Someone who lived in turning to fresh tasks
THE WOOD-PILE 135
Could so forget his handiwork on which
He spent himself, the labour of his axe,
And leave it there far from a useful fireplace
To warm the frozen swamp as best it could
With the slow smokeless burning of decay.
GOOD HOURS
I HAD for my winter evening walk
No one at all with whom to talk,
But I had the cottages in a row
Up to their shining eyes in snow.
And I thought I had the folk within:
I had the sound of a violin;
I had a glimpse through curtain laces
Of youthful forms and youthful faces.
I had such company outward bound.
I went till there were no cottages found.
I turned and repented, but coming back
I saw no window but that was black.
Over the snow my creaking feet
Disturbed the slumbering village street
Like profanation, by your leave.
At ten o clock of a winter eve.
137
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