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| 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, | 5 |
| 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 | 10 |
| 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 | 15 |
| To stand together on the crater’s verge | |
| That turned them on the world, and try to fathom | |
| 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. | 20 |
| 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 | 25 |
| 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 | 30 |
| 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 fête to-day,” he said. | 35 |
| |
| “It looks that way.” | |
| She swept the heavens, turning on her heel. | |
| “I only idled down.” | |
| |
| “I idled down.” | |
| |
| Provision there had been for just such meeting | 40 |
| 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, | 45 |
| 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: | 50 |
| The town is full of Chases, Lowes, and Baileys, | |
| All claiming some priority in Starkness. | |
| My mother was a Lane, yet might have married | |
| Anyone upon earth and still her children | |
| Would have been Starks, and doubtless here to-day.” | 55 |
| |
| “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.” | 60 |
| |
| “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. | 65 |
| 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 rain.” | 70 |
| |
| “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, | 75 |
| And disappeared and ended not far off. | |
| No one went home that way. The only house | |
| Beyond where they were was a shattered seedpod. | |
| And below roared a brook hidden in trees, | |
| The sound of which was silence for the place. | 80 |
| This he sat listening to till she gave judgment. | |
| |
| “On father’s side, it seems, we’re—let me see——” | |
| |
| “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.” | 85 |
| |
| “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 | 90 |
| 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? | 95 |
| 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?” | 100 |
| |
| “And what do you see?” | |
| |
| “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 I see. It’s a little, little boy, | 105 |
| 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 daylight.” | |
| |
| “He’s nothing. Listen. When I lean like this | |
| I can make out old Grandsir Stark distinctly,— | 110 |
| 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.” | 115 |
| |
| “Tell me about her. Does she look like me?” | |
| |
| “She should, shouldn’t she, you’re so many times | |
| 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— | 120 |
| 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.” | 125 |
| |
| “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 | 130 |
| That the brook raises in the empty valley. | |
| We have seen visions—now consult the voices. | |
| Something I must have learned riding in trains | |
| When I was young. I used the roar | |
| To set the voices speaking out of it, | 135 |
| Speaking or singing, and the band-music playing. | |
| 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.” | 140 |
| |
| “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. | 145 |
| 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. | 150 |
| You will do very well right where you are | |
| 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.” | 155 |
| |
| “I’ll hardly breathe.” | |
| |
| “The voices seem to say——” | |
| |
| “I’m waiting.” | |
| |
| “Don’t! The voices seem to say: | |
| Call her Nausicaa, the unafraid | 160 |
| 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, | 165 |
| Though what a name should matter between us——” | |
| |
| “I shall suspect——” | |
| |
| “Be good. The voices say: | |
| Call her Nausicaa, and take a timber | |
| That you shall find lies in the cellar charred | 170 |
| 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, | 175 |
| 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. | 180 |
| 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 Grandsir’s | |
| Nor Granny’s, surely. Call up one of them. | |
| They have best right to be heard in this place.” | 185 |
| |
| “You seem so partial to our great-grandmother | |
| (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. | 190 |
| 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, | 195 |
| 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 comfort. | |
| I should feel easier if I could see | |
| More of the salt wherewith they’re to be salted. | 200 |
| 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. | |
| But don’t you think we sometimes make too much | 205 |
| 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.” | 210 |
| |
| “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?” | 215 |
| |
| “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?” | |
| |
| “Nowhere but here | 220 |
| 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. | 225 |
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