| |
| THE THREE stood listening to a fresh access | |
| Of wind that caught against the house a moment, | |
| Gulped snow, and then blew free again—the Coles, | |
| Dressed, but dishevelled from some hours of sleep, | |
| Meserve belittled in the great skin coat he wore. | 5 |
| |
| Meserve was first to speak. He pointed backward | |
| Over his shoulder with his pipe-stem, saying, | |
| “You can just see it glancing off the roof, | |
| Making a great scroll upward toward the sky, | |
| Long enough for recording all our names on. | 10 |
| I think I’ll just call up my wife and tell her | |
| I’m here—so far—and starting on again. | |
| I’ll call her softly so that if she’s wise | |
| And gone to sleep, she needn’t wake to answer.” | |
| Three times he barely stirred the bell, then listened. | 15 |
| “Why, Lett, still up? Lett, I’m at Cole’s. I’m late. | |
| I called you up to say good-night from here | |
| Before I went to say good-morning there…. | |
| I thought I would … I know, but Lett—I know … | |
| I could, but what’s the sense? The rest won’t be | 20 |
| So bad … Give me an hour for it … Ho ho, | |
| Three hours to here! But that was all up hill; | |
| The rest is down … Why no, no, not a wallow; | |
| They kept their heads and took their time to it, | |
| Like darlings, both of them. They’re in the barn…. | 25 |
| My dear, I’m coming just the same; I didn’t | |
| Call you to ask you to invite me home.” | |
| |
| He lingered for some word she wouldn’t say, | |
| Said it at last himself, “Good-night,” and then, | |
| Getting no answer, closed the telephone. | 30 |
| The three stood in the lamplight round the table | |
| With lowered eyes a moment till he said, | |
“I’ll just see how the horses are.”
“Yes, do,” | |
| Both the Coles said together. Mrs. Cole | |
| Added: “You can judge better after seeing…. | 35 |
| I want you here with me, Fred. Leave him here, | |
| Brother Meserve. You know to find your way | |
Out through the shed.”
“I guess I know my way. | |
| I guess I know where I can find my name | |
| Carved in the shed to tell me who I am | 40 |
| If it don’t tell me where I am. I used | |
To play—”
“You tend your horses and come back. | |
Fred Cole, you’re going to let him!”
“Well, aren’t you? | |
How can you help yourself?”
“I called him Brother. | |
Why did I call him that?”
“It’s right enough. | 45 |
| That’s all you ever heard him called round here. | |
| He seems to have lost off his Christian name.” | |
| |
| “Christian enough I should call that myself. | |
| He took no notice, did he? Well, at least | |
| I didn’t use it out of love of him, | 50 |
| The dear knows. I detest the thought of him— | |
| With his ten children under ten years old. | |
| I hate his wretched little Racker Sect, | |
| All’s ever I heard of it, which isn’t much. | |
| But that’s not saying—Look, Fred Cole, it’s twelve, | 55 |
| Isn’t it, now? He’s been here half an hour. | |
| He says he left the village store at nine: | |
| Three hours to do four miles—a mile an hour | |
| Or not much better. Why, it doesn’t seem | |
| As if a man could move that slow and move. | 60 |
| Try to think what he did with all that time. | |
And three miles more to go!”
“Don’t let him go. | |
| Stick to him, Helen. Make him answer you. | |
| That sort of man talks straight on all his life | |
| From the last thing he said himself, stone deaf | 65 |
| To anything anyone else may say. | |
| I should have thought, though, you could make him hear you.” | |
| |
| “What is he doing out a night like this? | |
Why can’t he stay at home?”
“He had to preach.” | |
“It’s no night to be out.”
“He may be small, | 70 |
| He may be good, but one thing’s sure, he’s tough.” | |
| |
“And strong of stale tobacco.”
“He’ll pull through.” | |
| “You only say so. Not another house | |
| Or shelter to put into from this place | |
| To theirs. I’m going to call his wife again.” | 75 |
| |
| “Wait, and he may. Let’s see what he will do. | |
| Let’s see if he will think of her again. | |
| But then I doubt he’s thinking of himself— | |
| He doesn’t look on it as anything.” | |
| |
“He shan’t go—there!”
“It is a night, my dear.” | 80 |
| |
| “One thing: he didn’t drag God into it.” | |
| |
| “He don’t consider it a case for God.” | |
| |
| “You think so, do you? You don’t know the kind. | |
| He’s getting up a miracle this minute. | |
| Privately, to himself, right now, he’s thinking | 85 |
| He’ll make a case of it if he succeeds, | |
But keep still if he fails.”
“Keep still all over. | |
He’ll be dead—dead and buried.”
“Such a trouble! | |
| Not but I’ve every reason not to care | |
| What happens to him if it only takes | 90 |
| Some of the sanctimonious conceit | |
| Out of one of those pious scalawags.” | |
| |
| “Nonsense to that! You want to see him safe.” | |
| |
“You like the runt.”
“Don’t you a little?”
“Well, | |
| I don’t like what he’s doing, which is what | 95 |
You like, and like him for.”
“Oh, yes you do. | |
| You like your fun as well as anyone; | |
| Only you women have to put these airs on | |
| To impress men. You’ve got us so ashamed | |
| Of being men we can’t look at a good fight | 100 |
| Between two boys and not feel bound to stop it. | |
| Let the man freeze an ear or two, I say. | |
| He’s here—I leave him all to you. Go in | |
| And save his life…. All right, come in, Meserve. | |
| Sit down, sit down. How did you find the horses?” | 105 |
| |
“Fine, fine.”
“And ready for some more? My wife here | |
| Says it won’t do. You’ve got to give it up.” | |
| |
| “Won’t you, to please me? Please! If I say please? | |
| Mr. Meserve, I’ll leave it to your wife. | |
| What did your wife say on the telephone?” | 110 |
| |
| Meserve seemed to heed nothing but the lamp | |
| Or something not far from it on the table. | |
| By straightening out and lifting a forefinger, | |
| He pointed with his hand from where it lay | |
| Like a white crumpled spider on his knee: | 115 |
| “That leaf there in your open book! It moved | |
| Just then, I thought. It’s stood erect like that, | |
| There on the table, ever since I came, | |
| Trying to turn itself backward or forward— | |
| I’ve had my eye on it to make out which: | 120 |
| If forward, then it’s with a friend’s impatience— | |
| You see I know—to get you on to things | |
| It wants to see how you will take; if backward, | |
| It’s from regret for something you have passed | |
| And failed to see the good of. Never mind, | 125 |
| Things must expect to come in front of us | |
| A many times—I don’t say just how many, | |
| That varies with the things—before we see them. | |
| One of the lies would make it out that nothing | |
| Ever presents itself before us twice. | 130 |
| Where would we be at last if that were so? | |
| Our very life depends on everything’s | |
| Recurring till we answer from within. | |
| The thousandth time may prove the charm. That leaf! | |
| It can’t turn either way. It needs the wind’s help. | 135 |
| But the wind didn’t move it if it moved; | |
| It moved itself. The wind’s at naught in here. | |
| It couldn’t stir so sensitively poised | |
| A thing as that. It couldn’t reach the lamp | |
| To get a puff of black smoke from the flame, | 140 |
| Or blow a rumple in the collie’s coat. | |
| You make a little foursquare block of air, | |
| Quiet and light and warm, in spite of all | |
| The illimitable dark and cold and storm, | |
| And by so doing give these three—lamp, dog, | 145 |
| And book-leaf—that keep near you, their repose; | |
| Though for all anyone can tell, repose | |
| May be the thing you haven’t, yet you give it. | |
| So false it is that what we haven’t we can’t give; | |
| So false, that what we always say is true. | 150 |
| I’ll have to turn the leaf if no one else will. | |
| It won’t lie down. Then let it stand. Who cares?” | |
| “I shouldn’t want to hurry you, Meserve, | |
| But if you’re going—Say you’ll stay, you know? | |
| But let me raise this curtain on a scene, | 155 |
| And show you how it’s piling up against you. | |
| You see the snow-white through the white of frost? | |
| Ask Helen how far up the sash it’s climbed | |
Since last we read the gage.”
“It looks as if | |
| Some pallid thing had squashed its features flat, | 160 |
| And its eyes shut with overeagerness | |
| To see what people found so interesting | |
| In one another, and had gone to sleep | |
| Of its own stupid lack of understanding, | |
| Or broken its white neck of mushroom stuff | 165 |
| Short off, and died against the window-pane.” | |
| |
| “Brother Meserve, take care, you’ll scare yourself | |
| More than you will us with such nightmare talk. | |
| It’s you it matters to, because it’s you | |
| Who have to go out into it alone.” | 170 |
| |
| “Let him talk, Helen, and perhaps he’ll stay.” | |
| |
| “Before you drop the curtain—I’m reminded: | |
| You recollect the boy who came out here | |
| To breathe the air one winter—had a room | |
| Down at the Avery’s? Well, one sunny morning | 175 |
| After a downy storm, he passed our place | |
| And found me banking up the house with snow. | |
| And I was burrowing in deep for warmth, | |
| Piling it well above the window-sills. | |
| The snow against the window caught his eye. | 180 |
| ‘Hey, that’s a pretty thought’—those were his words. | |
| ‘So you can think it’s six feet deep outside, | |
| While you sit warm and read up balanced rations. | |
| You can’t get too much winter in the winter.’ | |
| Those were his words. And he went home and all | 185 |
| But banked the daylight out of Avery’s windows. | |
| Now you and I would go to no such length. | |
| At the same time you can’t deny it makes | |
| It not a mite worse, sitting here, we three, | |
| Playing our fancy, to have the snow-line run | 190 |
| So high across the pane outside. There where | |
| There is a sort of tunnel in the frost | |
| More like a tunnel than a hole—way down | |
| At the far end of it you see a stir | |
| And quiver like the frayed edge of the drift | 195 |
| Blown in the wind. I like that—I like that. | |
Well, now I leave you, people.”
“Come, Meserve, | |
| We thought you were deciding not to go— | |
| The ways you found to say the praise of comfort | |
| And being where you are. You want to stay.” | 200 |
| |
| “I’ll own it’s cold for such a fall of snow. | |
| This house is frozen brittle, all except | |
| This room you sit in. If you think the wind | |
| Sounds further off, it’s not because it’s dying; | |
| You’re further under in the snow—that’s all— | 205 |
| And feel it less. Hear the soft bombs of dust | |
| It bursts against us at the chimney mouth, | |
| And at the eaves. I like it from inside | |
| More than I shall out in it. But the horses | |
| Are rested and it’s time to say good-night, | 210 |
| And let you get to bed again. Good-night, | |
| Sorry I had to break in on your sleep.” | |
| |
| “Lucky for you you did. Lucky for you | |
| You had us for a half-way station | |
| To stop at. If you were the kind of man | 215 |
| Paid heed to women, you’d take my advice | |
| And for your family’s sake stay where you are. | |
| But what good is my saying it over and over? | |
| You’ve done more than you had a right to think | |
| You could do—now. You know the risk you take | 220 |
In going on.”
“Our snow-storms as a rule | |
| Aren’t looked on as man-killers, and although | |
| I’d rather be the beast that sleeps the sleep | |
| Under it all, his door sealed up and lost, | |
| Than the man fighting it to keep above it, | 225 |
| Yet think of the small birds at roost and not | |
| In nests. Shall I be counted less than they are? | |
| Their bulk in water would be frozen rock | |
| In no time out to-night. And yet to-morrow | |
| They will come budding boughs from tree to tree | 230 |
| Flirting their wings and saying Chicadee, | |
| As if not knowing what you meant by the word storm.” | |
| |
| “But why, when no one wants you to go on? | |
| Your wife—she doesn’t want you to. We don’t, | |
| And you yourself don’t want to. Who else is there?” | 235 |
| |
| “Save us from being cornered by a woman! | |
| Well, there’s”—She told Fred afterward that in | |
| The pause right there, she thought the dreaded word | |
| Was coming, “God.” But no, he only said, | |
| “Well, there’s—the storm. That says I must go on. | 240 |
| That wants me as a war might if it came. | |
Ask any man.”
He threw her that as something | |
| To last her till he got outside the door. | |
| He had Cole with him to the barn to see him off. | |
| When Cole returned he found his wife still standing | 245 |
| Beside the table near the open book, | |
Not reading it.
“Well, what kind of a man | |
Do you call that?” she said.
“He had the gift | |
| Of words, or is it tongues I ought to say?” | |
| |
| “Was ever such a man for seeing likeness?” | 250 |
| “Or disregarding people’s civil questions— | |
| What? We’ve found out in one hour more about him | |
| Than we had seeing him pass by in the road | |
| A thousand times. If that’s the way he preaches! | |
| You didn’t think you’d keep him after all. | 255 |
| Oh, I’m not blaming you. He didn’t leave you | |
| Much say in the matter, and I’m just as glad | |
| We’re not in for a night of him. No sleep | |
| If he had stayed. The least thing set him going. | |
| It’s quiet as an empty church without him.” | 260 |
| |
| “But how much better off are we as it is? | |
| We’ll have to sit here till we know he’s safe.” | |
| |
| “Yes, I suppose you’ll want to, but I shouldn’t. | |
| He knows what he can do, or he wouldn’t try. | |
| Get into bed I say, and get some rest. | 265 |
| He won’t come back, and if he telephones, | |
It won’t be for an hour or two.”
“Well then— | |
| We can’t be any help by sitting here | |
| And living his fight through with him, I suppose.” . . . . . . . . | |
| Cole had been telephoning in the dark. | 270 |
| |
| Mrs. Cole’s voice came from an inner room: | |
“Did she call you or you call her?”
“She me. | |
| You’d better dress—you won’t go back to bed. | |
| We must have been asleep—it’s three and after.” | |
| |
| “Had she been ringing long? I’ll get my wrapper— | 275 |
I want to speak to her.”
“All she said was, | |
| He hadn’t come, and had he really started.” | |
| |
| “She knew he had, poor thing, two hours ago.” | |
| |
| “He had the shovel. He’ll have made a fight.” | |
| |
| “Why did I ever let him leave this house!” | 280 |
| |
| “Don’t begin that. You did the best you could | |
| To keep him—though perhaps you didn’t quite | |
| Conceal a wish to see him show the spunk | |
| To disobey you. Much his wife’ll thank you.” | |
| |
| “Fred, after all I said! You shan’t make out | 285 |
| That it was any way but what it was. | |
| Did she let on by any word she said | |
She didn’t thank me?”
“When I told her ‘Gone,’ | |
| ‘Well, then,’ she said, and ‘Well then’—like a threat. | |
| And then her voice came scraping slow: ‘Oh, you, | 290 |
Why did you let him go?’”
“Asked why we let him? | |
| You let me there. I’ll ask her why she let him. | |
| She didn’t dare to speak when he was here. | |
| Their number’s—twenty-one? The thing won’t work. | |
| Someone’s receiver’s down. The handle stumbles. | 295 |
| The stubborn thing, the way it jars your arm! | |
| It’s theirs. She’s dropped it from her hand and gone.” | |
| |
“Try speaking. Say, ‘Hello.’”
“Hello, hello.” | |
“What do you hear?”
“I hear an empty room— | |
| You know—it sounds that way. And yes, I hear— | 300 |
| I think I hear a clock—and windows rattling. | |
| No step though. If she’s there she’s sitting down.” | |
| |
“Shout, she may hear you.”
“Shouting is no good.” | |
“Keep speaking then.”
“Hello. Hello. Hello. | |
| You don’t suppose—? She wouldn’t go out-doors?” | 305 |
| |
| “I’m half afraid that’s just what she might do.” | |
| |
“And leave the children?”
“Wait and call again. | |
| You can’t hear whether she has left the door | |
| Wide open, and the wind’s blown out the lamp, | |
| And the fire’s died, and the room’s dark and cold?” | 310 |
| |
| “One of two things, either she’s gone to bed | |
Or gone out-doors.”
“In which case both are lost. | |
| Do you know what she’s like? Have you ever met her? | |
| It’s strange she doesn’t want to speak to us.” | |
| |
| “Fred, see if you can hear what I hear. Come.” | 315 |
| |
“A clock, maybe.”
“Don’t you hear something else?” | |
“Not talking.”
“No.”
“Why, yes, I hear—what is it?” | |
“What do you say it is?”
“A baby’s crying!” | |
| |
| “Frantic it sounds though muffled and far off.” | |
| |
| “Its mother wouldn’t let it cry like that, | 320 |
Not if she’s there.”
“What do you make of it?” | |
| |
| “There’s only one thing possible to make— | |
| That is, assuming that she has gone out. | |
Of course she hasn’t, though.”
They both sat down | |
| Helpless. “There’s nothing we can do till morning.” | 325 |
| |
| “Fred, I shan’t let you think of going out.” | |
| |
| “Hold on.” The double bell began to chirp. | |
| They started up. Fred took the telephone. | |
| “Hello, Meserve. You’re there, then! And your wife?… | |
| Good! Why I asked—she didn’t seem to answer…. | 330 |
| He says she went to let him in the barn…. | |
| We’re glad. Oh, say no more about it, man. | |
Drop in and see us when you’re passing.”
“Well, | |
| She has him then, though what she wants him for | |
I don’t see.”
“Possibly not for herself. | 335 |
| Maybe she only wants him for the children.” | |
| |
| “The whole to-do seems to have been for nothing. | |
| What spoiled our night was to him just his fun. | |
| What did he come in for? To talk and visit? | |
| Thought he’d just call to tell us it was snowing. | 340 |
| If he thinks he is going to make our house | |
| A half-way coffee-house ’twixt town and nowhere—” | |
| |
| “I thought you’d feel you’d been too much concerned.” | |
| |
| “You think you haven’t been concerned yourself.” | |
| |
| “If you mean he was inconsiderate | 345 |
| To rout us out to think for him at midnight | |
| And then take our advice no more than nothing, | |
| Why, I agree with you. But let’s forgive him. | |
| We’ve had a share in one night of his life. | |
| What’ll you bet he ever calls again?” | 350 |
| |
