The mountain road will lead you past
The shack. It’s easily told, the last
Old tumbledown this side the ridge
Of snags; a little bridge
Is there that hasn’t yet dropped through.
I don’t know how it is with you,
But every time I see that shack
It gets me somehow—calls me back
And tries to speak. The caved-in shed
Where some poor nag was fed
His mighty little, and the rakes
Upstanding still—and scattered shakes,
Tell how they labored to deceive
The man with hope. In make-believe
They played a barn—and over there
The several-acre clearing where
A few anæmic blades of grain
Still volunteer; but oh
That Potter’s Field where grow
In broken rows of twos and threes
The little, weazened apple-trees.
Mere stalks are some, that died
Beside the stakes where they were tied,
While others held tenaciously
Their stunted semblance to a tree—
Their dangling leaves are sparse
And bloodless—so the farce
Goes on. I know he stood that day
He planted them and looked away
Across his claim—beyond that draw
Where all the ghost-trees are, and saw
Them fade away and in their stead
A smiling orchard with its red
Fruit-laden boughs. At any rate
He likely staked with fate
What all he had—all he could get,
And made his one long bet.
He staked the woman too—
That calico of faded blue
Still waving by the kitchen door,
The shreds of curtains on the four
Wee windows on the front, proclaim
There was a woman in the game.
Lord, how he must have strung
Her on—to drag her up among
Those snags! And what it must have been
In winter! Think of living in
That tumbly hut—eight feet of snow
Outside—and ten below.
Suppose the woman took her bed,
Caved in, just like the shed
Is now—upon her back laid flat,
(The work alone would tend to that).
[Illustration:
_The mountain road will lead you past
The shack. It’s easily told, the last
Old tumbledown this side the ridge
Of snags._]
Of course they had a kid.
The broken go-cart shows they did,
It’s shy a wheel and tongue—
You’ll find it there among
The weeds just by the front door stoop.
It’s ten to one he’d have the croup
And scarcely likely he’d get off
Without the whooping-cough.
Good God! It’s fiendish anywhere,
But think of whooping-cough up there
In winter! All that gloom—
A little room
With stuffy stove and candle-light,
And whooping, whooping through the night.
And when the man gave in
At last and found he couldn’t win,
Found apples couldn’t keep alive
Or thrive
Or come to any good
One bit more than a human could
Up there, and when the day
Came that they went away—
Packed up their leavings in a load
And joggled down the mountain road,
I’ll bet they both looked back
And cursed that shack.
And it is hard to think
That even that rose-pink
Of early sunrise on the top
Of that old mountain had one drop
Of beauty left for them. It might
Be that the white
Ghost-trees bespoke their mood
Of helplessness and solitude
That day. It’s easily told,
The old
Ramshackle place this side the ridge
Of snags—the little bridge
That hasn’t yet dropped through,
Will point it out to you.