19. The Bonfire   
   
   
“OH, let’s go up the hill and scare ourselves,      
As reckless as the best of them to-night,      
By setting fire to all the brush we piled      
With pitchy hands to wait for rain or snow.      
Oh, let’s not wait for rain to make it safe.           5   
The pile is ours: we dragged it bough on bough      
Down dark converging paths between the pines.      
Let’s not care what we do with it to-night.      
Divide it? No! But burn it as one pile      
The way we piled it. And let’s be the talk           10   
Of people brought to windows by a light      
Thrown from somewhere against their wall-paper.      
Rouse them all, both the free and not so free      
With saying what they’d like to do to us      
For what they’d better wait till we have done.           15   
Let’s all but bring to life this old volcano,      
If that is what the mountain ever was—      
And scare ourselves. Let wild fire loose we will….”      
   
“And scare you too?” the children said together.      
   
“Why wouldn’t it scare me to have a fire           20   
Begin in smudge with ropy smoke and know      
That still, if I repent, I may recall it,      
But in a moment not: a little spurt      
Of burning fatness, and then nothing but      
The fire itself can put it out, and that           25   
By burning out, and before it burns out      
It will have roared first and mixed sparks with stars,      
And sweeping round it with a flaming sword,      
Made the dim trees stand back in wider circle—      
Done so much and I know not how much more           30   
I mean it shall not do if I can bind it.      
Well if it doesn’t with its draft bring on      
A wind to blow in earnest from some quarter,      
As once it did with me upon an April.      
The breezes were so spent with winter blowing           35   
They seemed to fail the bluebirds under them      
Short of the perch their languid flight was toward;      
And my flame made a pinnacle to heaven      
As I walked once round it in possession.      
But the wind out of doors—you know the saying.           40   
There came a gust. You used to think the trees      
Made wind by fanning since you never knew      
It blow but that you saw the trees in motion.      
Something or someone watching made that gust.      
It put the flame tip-down and dabbed the grass           45   
Of over-winter with the least tip-touch      
Your tongue gives salt or sugar in your hand.      
The place it reached to blackened instantly.      
The black was all there was by day-light,      
That and the merest curl of cigarette smoke—           50   
And a flame slender as the hepaticas,      
Blood-root, and violets so soon to be now.      
But the black spread like black death on the ground,      
And I think the sky darkened with a cloud      
Like winter and evening coming on together.           55   
There were enough things to be thought of then.      
Where the field stretches toward the north      
And setting sun to Hyla brook, I gave it      
To flames without twice thinking, where it verges      
Upon the road, to flames too, though in fear           60   
They might find fuel there, in withered brake,      
Grass its full length, old silver golden-rod,      
And alder and grape vine entanglement,      
To leap the dusty deadline. For my own      
I took what front there was beside. I knelt           65   
And thrust hands in and held my face away.      
Fight such a fire by rubbing not by beating.      
A board is the best weapon if you have it.      
I had my coat. And oh, I knew, I knew,      
And said out loud, I couldn’t bide the smother           70   
And heat so close in; but the thought of all      
The woods and town on fire by me, and all      
The town turned out to fight for me—that held me.      
I trusted the brook barrier, but feared      
The road would fail; and on that side the fire           75   
Died not without a noise of crackling wood—      
Of something more than tinder-grass and weed—      
That brought me to my feet to hold it back      
By leaning back myself, as if the reins      
Were round my neck and I was at the plough.           80   
I won! But I’m sure no one ever spread      
Another color over a tenth the space      
That I spread coal-black over in the time      
It took me. Neighbors coming home from town      
Couldn’t believe that so much black had come there           85   
While they had backs turned, that it hadn’t been there      
When they had passed an hour or so before      
Going the other way and they not seen it.      
They looked about for someone to have done it.      
But there was no one. I was somewhere wondering           90   
Where all my weariness had gone and why      
I walked so light on air in heavy shoes      
In spite of a scorched Fourth-of-July feeling.      
Why wouldn’t I be scared remembering that?”      
   
“If it scares you, what will it do to us?”           95   
   
“Scare you. But if you shrink from being scared,      
What would you say to war if it should come?      
That’s what for reasons I should like to know—      
If you can comfort me by any answer.”      
   
“Oh, but war’s not for children—it’s for men.”           100   
   
“Now we are digging almost down to China.      
My dears, my dears, you thought that—we all thought it.      
So your mistake was ours. Haven’t you heard, though,      
About the ships where war has found them out      
At sea, about the towns where war has come           105   
Through opening clouds at night with droning speed      
Further o’erhead than all but stars and angels,—      
And children in the ships and in the towns?      
Haven’t you heard what we have lived to learn?      
Nothing so new—something we had forgotten:           110   
War is for everyone, for children too.      
I wasn’t going to tell you and I mustn’t.      
The best way is to come up hill with me      
And have our fire and laugh and be afraid.”      

20. A Girl’s Garden   
   
   
A NEIGHBOR of mine in the village      
  Likes to tell how one spring      
When she was a girl on the farm, she did      
  A childlike thing.      
   
One day she asked her father           5   
  To give her a garden plot      
To plant and tend and reap herself,      
  And he said, “Why not?”      
   
In casting about for a corner      
  He thought of an idle bit           10   
Of walled-off ground where a shop had stood,      
  And he said, “Just it.”      
   
And he said, “That ought to make you      
  An ideal one-girl farm,      
And give you a chance to put some strength           15   
  On your slim-jim arm.”      
   
It was not enough of a garden,      
  Her father said, to plough;      
So she had to work it all by hand,      
  But she don’t mind now.           20   
   
She wheeled the dung in the wheelbarrow      
  Along a stretch of road;      
But she always ran away and left      
  Her not-nice load.      
   
And hid from anyone passing.           25   
  And then she begged the seed.      
She says she thinks she planted one      
  Of all things but weed.      
   
A hill each of potatoes,      
  Radishes, lettuce, peas,           30   
Tomatoes, beets, beans, pumpkins, corn,      
  And even fruit trees      
   
And yes, she has long mistrusted      
  That a cider apple tree      
In bearing there to-day is hers,           35   
  Or at least may be.      
   
Her crop was a miscellany      
  When all was said and done,      
A little bit of everything,      
  A great deal of none.           40   
   
Now when she sees in the village      
  How village things go,      
Just when it seems to come in right,      
  She says, “I know!      
   
It’s as when I was a farmer——”           45   
  Oh, never by way of advice!      
And she never sins by telling the tale      
  To the same person twice.

   
21. The Exposed Nest   
   
   
YOU were forever finding some new play.      
So when I saw you down on hands and knees      
In the meadow, busy with the new-cut hay,      
Trying, I thought, to set it up on end,      
I went to show you how to make it stay,           5   
If that was your idea, against the breeze,      
And, if you asked me, even help pretend      
To make it root again and grow afresh.      
But ’twas no make-believe with you to-day,      
Nor was the grass itself your real concern,           10   
Though I found your hand full of wilted fern,      
Steel-bright June-grass, and blackening heads of clover.      
’Twas a nest full of young birds on the ground      
The cutter-bar had just gone champing over      
(Miraculously without tasting flesh)           15   
And left defenseless to the heat and light.      
You wanted to restore them to their right      
Of something interposed between their sight      
And too much world at once—could means be found.      
The way the nest-full every time we stirred           20   
Stood up to us as to a mother-bird      
Whose coming home has been too long deferred,      
Made me ask would the mother-bird return      
And care for them in such a change of scene      
And might our meddling make her more afraid.           25   
That was a thing we could not wait to learn.      
We saw the risk we took in doing good,      
But dared not spare to do the best we could      
Though harm should come of it; so built the screen      
You had begun, and gave them back their shade.           30   
All this to prove we cared. Why is there then      
No more to tell? We turned to other things.      
I haven’t any memory—have you?—      
Of ever coming to the place again      
To see if the birds lived the first night through,           35   
And so at last to learn to use their wings.

22. “Out, Out—”   
   
   
THE BUZZ-SAW snarled and rattled in the yard      
And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood,      
Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it.      
And from there those that lifted eyes could count      
Five mountain ranges one behind the other           5   
Under the sunset far into Vermont.      
And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled,      
As it ran light, or had to bear a load.      
And nothing happened: day was all but done.      
Call it a day, I wish they might have said           10   
To please the boy by giving him the half hour      
That a boy counts so much when saved from work.      
His sister stood beside them in her apron      
To tell them “Supper.” At the word, the saw,      
As if to prove saws knew what supper meant,           15   
Leaped out at the boy’s hand, or seemed to leap—      
He must have given the hand. However it was,      
Neither refused the meeting. But the hand!      
The boy’s first outcry was a rueful laugh,      
As he swung toward them holding up the hand           20   
Half in appeal, but half as if to keep      
The life from spilling. Then the boy saw all—      
Since he was old enough to know, big boy      
Doing a man’s work, though a child at heart—      
He saw all spoiled. “Don’t let him cut my hand off—           25   
The doctor, when he comes. Don’t let him, sister!”      
So. But the hand was gone already.      
The doctor put him in the dark of ether.      
He lay and puffed his lips out with his breath.      
And then—the watcher at his pulse took fright.           30   
No one believed. They listened at his heart.      
Little—less—nothing!—and that ended it.      
No more to build on there. And they, since they      
Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.      

   
23. Brown’s Descent, or the Willy-nilly Slide   
   
   
BROWN lived at such a lofty farm      
  That everyone for miles could see      
His lantern when he did his chores      
  In winter after half-past three.      
   
And many must have seen him make           5   
  His wild descent from there one night,      
’Cross lots, ’cross walls, ’cross everything,      
  Describing rings of lantern light.      
   
Between the house and barn the gale      
  Got him by something he had on           10   
And blew him out on the icy crust      
  That cased the world, and he was gone!      
   
Walls were all buried, trees were few:      
  He saw no stay unless he stove      
A hole in somewhere with his heel.           15   
  But though repeatedly he strove      
   
And stamped and said things to himself,      
  And sometimes something seemed to yield,      
He gained no foothold, but pursued      
  His journey down from field to field.           20   
   
Sometimes he came with arms outspread      
  Like wings, revolving in the scene      
Upon his longer axis, and      
  With no small dignity of mien.      
   
Faster or slower as he chanced,           25   
  Sitting or standing as he chose,      
According as he feared to risk      
  His neck, or thought to spare his clothes,      
   
He never let the lantern drop.      
  And some exclaimed who saw afar           30   
The figures he described with it,      
  ”I wonder what those signals are      
   
Brown makes at such an hour of night!      
  He’s celebrating something strange.      
I wonder if he’s sold his farm,           35   
  Or been made Master of the Grange.”      
   
He reeled, he lurched, he bobbed, he checked;      
  He fell and made the lantern rattle      
(But saved the light from going out.)      
  So half-way down he fought the battle           40   
   
Incredulous of his own bad luck.      
  And then becoming reconciled      
To everything, he gave it up      
  And came down like a coasting child.      
   
“Well—I—be—” that was all he said,           45   
  As standing in the river road,      
He looked back up the slippery slope      
  (Two miles it was) to his abode.      
   
Sometimes as an authority      
  On motor-cars, I’m asked if I           50   
Should say our stock was petered out,      
  And this is my sincere reply:      
   
Yankees are what they always were.      
  Don’t think Brown ever gave up hope      
Of getting home again because           55   
  He couldn’t climb that slippery slope;      
   
Or even thought of standing there      
  Until the January thaw      
Should take the polish off the crust.      
  He bowed with grace to natural law,           60   
   
And then went round it on his feet,      
  After the manner of our stock;      
Not much concerned for those to whom,      
  At that particular time o’clock,      
   
It must have looked as if the course           65   
  He steered was really straight away      
From that which he was headed for—      
  Not much concerned for them, I say:      
   
No more so than became a man—      
  And politician at odd seasons.           70   
I’ve kept Brown standing in the cold      
  While I invested him with reasons;      
   
But now he snapped his eyes three times;      
  Then shook his lantern, saying, “Ile’s      
’Bout out!” and took the long way home           75   
  By road, a matter of several miles.

24. The Gum-gatherer   
   
   
THERE overtook me and drew me in      
To his down-hill, early-morning stride,      
And set me five miles on my road      
Better than if he had had me ride,      
A man with a swinging bag for load           5   
And half the bag wound round his hand.      
We talked like barking above the din      
Of water we walked along beside.      
And for my telling him where I’d been      
And where I lived in mountain land           10   
To be coming home the way I was,      
He told me a little about himself.      
He came from higher up in the pass      
Where the grist of the new-beginning brooks      
Is blocks split off the mountain mass—           15   
And hopeless grist enough it looks      
Ever to grind to soil for grass.      
(The way it is will do for moss.)      
There he had built his stolen shack.      
It had to be a stolen shack           20   
Because of the fears of fire and loss      
That trouble the sleep of lumber folk:      
Visions of half the world burned black      
And the sun shrunken yellow in smoke.      
We know who when they come to town           25   
Bring berries under the wagon seat,      
Or a basket of eggs between their feet;      
What this man brought in a cotton sack      
Was gum, the gum of the mountain spruce.      
He showed me lumps of the scented stuff           30   
Like uncut jewels, dull and rough.      
It comes to market golden brown;      
But turns to pink between the teeth.      
   
I told him this is a pleasant life      
To set your breast to the bark of trees           35   
That all your days are dim beneath,      
And reaching up with a little knife,      
To loose the resin and take it down      
And bring it to market when you please.      

25. The Line-gang   
   
   
HERE come the line-gang pioneering by.      
They throw a forest down less cut than broken.      
They plant dead trees for living, and the dead      
They string together with a living thread.      
They string an instrument against the sky           5   
Wherein words whether beaten out or spoken      
Will run as hushed as when they were a thought.      
But in no hush they string it: they go past      
With shouts afar to pull the cable taut,      
To hold it hard until they make it fast,           10   
To ease away—they have it. With a laugh,      
An oath of towns that set the wild at naught      
They bring the telephone and telegraph.      

26. The Vanishing Red   
   
   
HE is said to have been the last Red Man      
In Acton. And the Miller is said to have laughed—      
If you like to call such a sound a laugh.      
But he gave no one else a laugher’s license.      
For he turned suddenly grave as if to say,           5   
“Whose business,—if I take it on myself,      
Whose business—but why talk round the barn?—      
When it’s just that I hold with getting a thing done with.”      
You can’t get back and see it as he saw it.      
It’s too long a story to go into now.           10   
You’d have to have been there and lived it.      
Then you wouldn’t have looked on it as just a matter      
Of who began it between the two races.      
   
Some guttural exclamation of surprise      
The Red Man gave in poking about the mill           15   
Over the great big thumping shuffling mill-stone      
Disgusted the Miller physically as coming      
From one who had no right to be heard from.      
“Come, John,” he said, “you want to see the wheel pit?”      
   
He took him down below a cramping rafter,           20   
And showed him, through a manhole in the floor,      
The water in desperate straits like frantic fish,      
Salmon and sturgeon, lashing with their tails.      
Then he shut down the trap door with a ring in it      
That jangled even above the general noise,           25   
And came up stairs alone—and gave that laugh,      
And said something to a man with a meal-sack      
That the man with the meal-sack didn’t catch—then.      
Oh, yes, he showed John the wheel pit all right.      

   
27. Snow   
   
   
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           35   
Added: “You can judge better after seeing.—      
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,           40   
I guess I know where I can find my name      
Carved in the shed to tell me who I am      
If it don’t tell me where I am. I used      
To play—”      
   
“You tend your horses and come back.           45   
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?”           50   
   
“It’s right enough.      
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           55   
I didn’t use it out of love of him,      
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.           60   
But that’s not saying—Look, Fred Cole, it’s twelve,      
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           65   
As if a man could move that slow and move.      
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.           70   
That sort of man talks straight on all his life      
From the last thing he said himself, stone deaf      
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?           75   
Why can’t he stay at home?”      
   
“He had to preach.”      
   
“It’s no night to be out.”      
   
“He may be small,      
He may be good, but one thing’s sure, he’s tough.”           80   
   
“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.”           85   
   
“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!”           90   
   
“It is a night, my dear.”      
   
“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.           95   
Privately—to himself, right now, he’s thinking      
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.”           100   
   
“Such a trouble!      
Not but I’ve every reason not to care      
What happens to him if it only takes      
Some of the sanctimonious conceit      
Out of one of those pious scalawags.”           105   
   
“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           110   
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           115   
Of being men we can’t look at a good fight      
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.           120   
Sit down, sit down. How did you find the horses?”      
   
“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?           125   
Mr. Meserve, I’ll leave it to your wife.      
What did your wife say on the telephone?”      
   
Meserve seemed to heed nothing but the lamp      
Or something not far from it on the table.      
By straightening out and lifting a forefinger,           130   
He pointed with his hand from where it lay      
Like a white crumpled spider on his knee:      
“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,           135   
Trying to turn itself backward or forward,      
I’ve had my eye on it to make out which;      
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           140   
It’s from regret for something you have passed      
And failed to see the good of. Never mind,      
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.           145   
One of the lies would make it out that nothing      
Ever presents itself before us twice.      
Where would we be at last if that were so?      
Our very life depends on everything’s      
Recurring till we answer from within.           150   
The thousandth time may prove the charm.— That leaf!      
It can’t turn either way. It needs the wind’s help.      
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           155   
A thing as that. It couldn’t reach the lamp      
To get a puff of black smoke from the flame,      
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           160   
The illimitable dark and cold and storm,      
And by so doing give these three, lamp, dog,      
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.           165   
So false it is that what we haven’t we can’t give;      
So false, that what we always say is true.      
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,           170   
But if you’re going— Say you’ll stay, you know?      
But let me raise this curtain on a scene,      
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           175   
Since last we read the gage.”      
   
“It looks as if      
Some pallid thing had squashed its features flat      
And its eyes shut with overeagerness      
To see what people found so interesting           180   
In one another, and had gone to sleep      
Of its own stupid lack of understanding,      
Or broken its white neck of mushroom stuff      
Short off, and died against the window-pane.”      
   
“Brother Meserve, take care, you’ll scare yourself           185   
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.”      
   
“Let him talk, Helen, and perhaps he’ll stay.”      
   
“Before you drop the curtain—I’m reminded:           190   
You recollect the boy who came out here      
To breathe the air one winter—had a room      
Down at the Averys’? Well, one sunny morning      
After a downy storm, he passed our place      
And found me banking up the house with snow.           195   
And I was burrowing in deep for warmth,      
Piling it well above the window-sills.      
The snow against the window caught his eye.      
‘Hey, that’s a pretty thought’—those were his words.      
‘So you can think it’s six feet deep outside,           200   
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      
But banked the daylight out of Avery’s windows.      
Now you and I would go to no such length.           205   
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 snowline run      
So high across the pane outside. There where      
There is a sort of tunnel in the frost           210   
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      
Blown in the wind. I like that—I like that.      
Well, now I leave you, people.”           215   
   
“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.”      
   
“I’ll own it’s cold for such a fall of snow.           220   
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—      
And feel it less. Hear the soft bombs of dust           225   
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,      
And let you get to bed again. Good-night,           230   
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      
Paid heed to women, you’d take my advice           235   
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      
In going on.”           240   
   
“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,           245   
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           250   
Flirting their wings and saying Chickadee,      
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?”           255   
   
“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.           260   
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.           265   
When Cole returned he found his wife still standing      
Beside the table near the open book,      
Not reading it.      
   
“Well, what kind of a man      
Do you call that?” she said.           270   
   
“He had the gift      
Of words, or is it tongues, I ought to say?”      
   
“Was ever such a man for seeing likeness?”      
   
“Or disregarding people’s civil questions—      
What? We’ve found out in one hour more about him           275   
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.      
Oh, I’m not blaming you. He didn’t leave you      
Much say in the matter, and I’m just as glad           280   
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.”      
   
“But how much better off are we as it is?      
We’ll have to sit here till we know he’s safe.”           285   
   
“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.      
He won’t come back, and if he telephones,      
It won’t be for an hour or two.”           290   
   
“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.      
Mrs. Cole’s voice came from an inner room:           295   
“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.           300   
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.”           305   
   
“Why did I ever let him leave this house!”      
   
“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.”           310   
   
“Fred, after all I said! You shan’t make out      
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,’           315   
‘Well then,’ she said, and ‘Well then’—like a threat.      
And then her voice came scraping slow: ‘Oh, you,      
Why did you let him go’?”      
   
“Asked why we let him?      
You let me there. I’ll ask her why she let him.           320   
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.      
   
The stubborn thing, the way it jars your arm!      
It’s theirs. She’s dropped it from her hand and gone.”           325   
   
“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—           330   
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.”           335   
   
“Hello. Hello. Hello.      
You don’t suppose—? She wouldn’t go out doors?”      
   
“I’m half afraid that’s just what she might do.”      
   
“And leave the children?”      
   
“Wait and call again.           340   
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?”      
   
“One of two things, either she’s gone to bed      
Or gone out doors.”           345   
   
“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.”      
   
“A clock maybe.”           350   
   
“Don’t you hear something else?”      
   
“Not talking.”      
“No.”      
   
“Why, yes, I hear—what is it?”      
   
“What do you say it is?”           355   
   
“A baby’s crying!      
Frantic it sounds, though muffled and far off.”      
   
“Its mother wouldn’t let it cry like that,      
Not if she’s there.”      
   
“What do you make of it?”           360   
   
“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.”      
   
“Fred, I shan’t let you think of going out.”           365   
   
“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.      
He says she went to let him in the barn.—           370   
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.”           375   
“Possibly not for herself.      
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?           380   
Thought he’d just call to tell us it was snowing.      
If he thinks he is going to make our house      
A halfway 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.”           385   
   
“If you mean he was inconsiderate      
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.           390   
What’ll you bet he ever calls again?”      

28. The Sound of the Trees   
   
   
I WONDER about the trees.      
Why do we wish to bear      
Forever the noise of these      
More than another noise      
So close to our dwelling place?           5   
We suffer them by the day      
Till we lose all measure of pace,      
And fixity in our joys,      
And acquire a listening air.      
They are that that talks of going           10   
But never gets away;      
And that talks no less for knowing,      
As it grows wiser and older,      
That now it means to stay.      
My feet tug at the floor           15   
And my head sways to my shoulder      
Sometimes when I watch trees sway,      
From the window or the door.      
I shall set forth for somewhere,      
I shall make the reckless choice           20   
Some day when they are in voice      
And tossing so as to scare      
The white clouds over them on.      
I shall have less to say,      
But I shall be gone.           25