| |
| OVER the house the evening settled down. | |
| The little phaeton stood before the door. | |
| Out came her husband, strong and weather-brown: | |
| “Why, Judith, what on earth are you waiting for?”— | |
| He stroked the pony—“And the boy—where’s he? | 5 |
| I thought you’d gone.” | |
| |
| “We were just starting, when | |
| Will heard a droning, and he said to me: | |
| ‘It’s from the mine—I know the sound. The men | |
| Forgot to shut things off—I’ll go and see. | 10 |
| Mother, you take the reins and wait a bit— | |
| I won’t be long.’ And now it’s fully three | |
| Long quarters of an hour, and here I sit.” | |
| |
| “Will knows what he’s about,” said Alan. “Well, | |
| There’s time enough, Jude. Why it isn’t eight! | 15 |
| You might stay out a little longer spell, | |
| Taking the road around by Fostergate. | |
| I’m glad he’s learning how to run the mine— | |
| Here we’ve a coal-mine right on our own place, | |
| And it’ll go to him. How keen and fine | 20 |
| He is!—it can’t help showing in his face. | |
| I thought he might come home half-heartedly, | |
| Feeling himself too tall for us, somehow | |
| Grown different in his ways, and wishing we | |
| Could be more …” | 25 |
| |
| “Alan, don’t talk nonsense, now!— | |
| You might have known he’d always be the same. | |
| They couldn’t make him love us any less, | |
| Not all the colleges your tongue could name.” | |
| |
| “You’re right enough, you’re right enough, I guess.” | 30 |
| |
| “He’d rather take his mother for a drive | |
| Than be the governor of Illinois! | |
| Now there’s the moon, as sure as I’m alive! | |
| Alan, step back and see what keeps the boy.” | |
| |
| And Alan, young at fifty, straight and proud, | 35 |
| Strode from the narrow box-path’s mossy tiling | |
| Over the lawn where the cool branches bowed. | |
| And he was humming to himself, and smiling; | |
| For all the scent and sound of evening blended | |
| In one voice, singing, “Our son!” The high grain-stack, | 40 |
| Crowned by the moon, where the long pasture ended, | |
| Sang out, “Our son!” And his heart sang it back. | |
| |
| He entered through a doorway in the ground. | |
| Down in the mine he groped his way about, | |
| Calling, “Ho—Will!” There came no answering sound. | 45 |
| And still went echoing Alan’s shout on shout. | |
| Now like a menacing troop of giant foes | |
| Dark in the mine loomed shadowy shapes of steel. | |
| Dark in his brain a dream of dread arose. | |
| |
| A darker something whirled upon a wheel. . . . . . . . . | 50 |
| Agèd at fifty, he came out. No more | |
| Was any singing, for to him the air | |
| Was hushed forever, and earth’s lovely floor | |
| Sent up in vain its fragrance everywhere. | |
| Feeble and faint, at last he reached the lawn— | 55 |
| One thought, to be with her. He stumbled, fell, | |
| And up again he staggered. On; oh, on! | |
| He must make haste with what he had to tell. . . . . . . . . | |
| She waited, waited, looking straight ahead, | |
| Deep in a plan of trimming for a blouse. | 60 |
| He stood there—and she knew, before he said | |
| The words: “Get down, dear—come! come in the house.” | |
| |
