"All things rejoiced beneath the sun--the weeds,
The river, and the cornfields, and the reeds,
The willow leaves that glanced in the light breeze,
And the firm foliage of the larger trees."
The rain that brought back sense and sound to Myron Holder lasted for
three days, falling steadily during that time; it was succeeded by the
most joyous of weather. The spring was past; the grass grew lush and
green beside the little waterways that the rain had created by the
roadside; these mimic rivers had in miniature all the diversities and
beauties of their greater brethren. There was a gradual decline from
the inland to the lake, and adown this many of these evanescent streams
found their way.
The stream that passed the Deans farm was the very epitome of Life.
Now a large stone obstructed its course and divided its shallow flood,
which crept sadly round either side of this rocky islet, to gush gayly
together beyond it; after a short space of calm it rushed against an
upturned sod and, broken and ragged, fell in tatters over the brink
into the little pool below, in whose tiny vortex floated twigs and bits
of last year's grass, and perchance a glistening white feather from the
breast of a gull; freed from its durance in the pool and not yet
schooled to peace and patience, the stream sped on hastily and noisily,
striving to find its way between the interlaced red roots of a cedar;
its haste to get out into the sunlight defeated its object, and the
close-knit fibres flung it back again and again, but it returned to the
charge with tiny banners of foam and ripples of defiance; so the strife
continued until the gathering ranks of water rose strong enough to toss
the foremost clear over the barriers, and the stream went on its way
cheerily until the dark culvert that took it across the road was
reached, and as souls that plunge into the darkness of death leave all
behind them, so this little stream left its foam, its ripples, its
burden of twigs and wisps of grass and all its infinitesimal flotsam
and jetsam, and essayed the darksome passage, a naked little stream;
once out in the light again, it rippled on reflectively, until at last,
its "tribute wave delivered," it merged its identity in the
lake--losing (and here we cry with breathless lips, "Let it be like the
soul in this also!") losing all puny consciousness of individual
existence, only aware of being a part of that shining reservoir,
dispensing beneficent gifts to air, and blessing and being blessed by
the sun, that shone down more sweetly now upon it than when it was a
vain and fretting brook.
The broad burdock leaves grew so rapidly in these days that their
unstable stalks could not sustain them, and they trailed near the
ground, bleached and unhealthy-looking, defacing the plant they should
have adorned, like purposes unfulfilled for lack of will.
The wood violets spent all their surplus sap in leaves, and their later
blooms were smothered in this luxuriance of foliage, as good resolves
die 'mid many words.
In the maples, besides the singing of birds, there was now to be heard
the "lisp of leaves" murmuring nature's alphabet. The swallows did not
fly about so wildly, nor the bob-o-link, singing, soar so high--for the
swallows hovered ever near the gray eaves of the barns, where, in their
clay houses, the white eggs were being patiently warmed to life, and
the bob-o-link (that slyest of birds) lingered ever in the grass
meadows, where, upon a nest hid most cunningly, its mate sat listening
to its singing. The ponds and the margins of the lake were alive with
wriggling tadpoles, and Bing White hung enchanted over a pool left at
the foot of his father's field where, when the sun was high, the water
spiders darted hither and thither. It was not the insects Bing
watched, but the shadows cast by them upon the sandy bottom of the
pool; for, by a conspiracy between the water and the sun, the minute
disks that form the feet of these creatures, and enable them to "walk
upon the water" in very truth, were magnified a thousand times, and
this enlarged refraction, like spots of gold, wavered through the water
in consonance with the spiders' movements on the surface. When the sun
shone brightly, the spiders came out in force, and darted about
untiringly; it was as though the spiders wove a web of shining water,
flinging round golden bobbins through the woof and weft of their fabric.
A little fawn-colored wild duck, belated in its journey to the north,
came to this pool, a solitary but contented little bird, until Bing
stoned it so persistently that it flew away one day, never to return.
The spring grains were growing strongly, and the fall wheat was tall
and vividly green, except that patches, bare save for knotty roots
upthrown upon the surface, showed where, upon the high ground, it had
been "winter killed," or spaces of bleached and yellowed blades
indicated where, in the hollows, the heavy rains had "drowned it out."
The blossoming of the fruit trees was past, that marvellous season of
efflorescence and beauty, when the air is heavy with perfume and the
paths strewn with petals--the rose and white of the apples, the
mother-o'-pearl purity of the cherry, the fragrant ivory of the pears,
loose-leaved plum flowers, and the hiding, faint-pink quince
blooms--these and the peach blows that made gay and glad the gardens
and the orchards.
And the woodlands and the lanes rejoiced also--for theirs were the
cloyingly sweet blooms of the pea tree and the insignificant-looking
but honey-smelling flowers of the locust, the bitter-sweet blossoms of
the wild plum, so finely cut in tiny petals, so filled with snow-white
stamens, so thickly massed together as to make the tree seem a fragrant
snow cloud; then there was the red and pink of the "natural" apples,
the ungrafted trees that had sprung up in every neighboring woodland;
their taste was insipid, and had a peculiar, smoky flavor, but their
blossoms were not less sweet than those of their cultured kinsfolk, and
side by side with them stood the "choke cherry" with its long sprays of
fragile blossoms that nauseate with their odor. Best of all, either in
woodland or garden, orchard or lane, there was the wild crab-apple,
upon whose gnarled and thorny branches grew its unspeakably sweet
flower. The pink-veined petals folded about its perfumed centre, or
opening but an hour or two, to disclose its golden heart, then, paling
and falling, overcome by its own breath; for in the perfume of the wild
crab-apple there lies all the story of the year, all the life of love;
it has taken to itself all the sweetness, the bitterness, the languors,
the fever, the desire, the satiety, the distaste, the joy, the sting of
winter, the swoon of summer, the expectancy of spring, the overcoming
of autumn, taken all, and mingling it with that we dream of, but know
not, offers it to us upon thorny branches. And the fruit of these
blossoms is bitter.
When the bloom was gone from all the trees, then the bees began to hum
about the currant bushes, sipping the sweets of their green flowers,
and there rose from orchard and field the savor of grape bloom. For
Jamestown sent many hundred tons of grapes to the wine factories every
year, and around the fences or over the cedars, there grew the "fox"
grape, the "chicken" grape, and the bitter wild grape from which they
distill a syrup for the throat.
Mrs. Deans' garden was "made," planted from side to side with
vegetables, daily growing higher; the leaves were thickening on the
currant bushes, and the young grape leaves were losing their downy
whiteness and growing green and thick. Young turkeys, goslings, ducks,
and baby chickens disputed with each other for the food dispensed so
liberally to them; but Mrs. Deans ruled her poultry-yard, as she did
her other belongings, with a rod of iron. The turkeys were the
aristocrats of the place; they ate milk, white curds and chopped
lettuce, and boiled eggs minced fine, with pepper; the rest fared on
common meal--only all the spare time the bound girl had was spent in
digging worms for the ducks.
"See that big worm there, Myron," she said one day, pointing to a huge,
wriggling worm that two ducks were disputing possession of; "see that
worm? Well, that's Mrs. Deans; of all the trouble that contrary
critter give me I can't tell! It near wore me out, a-digging and
a-digging; now it's in trouble its own self--you see--it'll be torn in
two yet, yes--glad of it--there it goes! That'll happen to Mrs. Deans
some day, when the Lord gets hold of her. Hush? I won't hush! Ain't
she always a jangling? Jangling is something I can't abide, and how
she goes it about nothing at all! She'll be tore in two along o' her
ways, see if she ain't." With which satisfactory and encouraging
prophecy Liz betook herself indoors.
Mrs. Deans had never found the time to go to Mrs. White's, but when one
day her son Gamaliel told her he had seen Homer Wilson and Myron
talking together in the "open village street" the heart of Mrs. Deans
burned within her, and she reproached herself that she had not gone
sooner; if she waited any longer it might be stale news; if they were
brazen enough to talk to each other on the street--people--Jamestown
people--would not fail to notice it; now that there was a possibility
of other lips telling "young Ann White" of Homer Wilson's badness Mrs.
Deans felt it incumbent upon her to act at once, to arise in her
strength and baffle the designs of the evil one upon the unsuspecting
citadel of young Ann White's heart. Mrs. Deans called it, to herself,
"putting Homer Wilson's nose out of joint in that quarter anyhow," but
the phrase matters little, the intention expressed being identical.
To "stir up the lazy and strengthen the weak" is a proceeding much to
be admired doubtless, being enjoined by no less authoritative edict
than the Westminster Confession; and however Mrs. Deans regarded the
latter half of the injunction, she had nothing to reproach herself with
in view of one of its requirements. That Mrs. Deans regarded all
people under her as being lazy, as well as the majority of her
neighbors, may be taken as granted; it will therefore be seen that she
had little time for the latter half of the command. Before she left
for Mrs. White's that day, she went to the kitchen and gave Liz and
Myron an eloquent extempore narration of their past sins and
shortcomings, their present delinquencies, their future state of sin
and misery, proceeding to a peroration regarding the probabilities of
their immortal lives, and rounding off her address with a pleasant
prediction of eternal perdition for both of them. Having given them
tasks they could not possibly perform before her return, Mrs. Deans
turned her attention to her husband. As he could not move about much,
and as he had a maddening gift for holding his tongue, Mrs. Deans was
often exasperated by him; upon this occasion, having absolutely no
handle to hinge her remarks upon, she contented herself with a few
well-considered and audible reflections upon his utter uselessness,
"either to God or man" as she put it, which threw such a burden upon
her "helpless" shoulders; then she picked up his plug of chewing
tobacco and narrowly regarded how much of it was gone, with a view to
gauging the quantity he consumed in her absence. He squirmed under
this; it affected him more than bitter words.
Having made every one as uncomfortable as possible, Mrs. Deans went her
way.
Myron and Liz went out to their hoeing, Liz saying when once out of
earshot of Mr. Deans:
"Did ye hear her jist, Myron, with that talk about 'eternal lakes of
burning'--what's 'eternal' but 'continual?'--an' if Mrs. Deans ain't a
continual burning torment her own self, I'll never drink water! Ain't
she now, Myron? Why don't you speak out and say what you think? Keep
still? Told us not to talk? Of course she did! She'd stop the dogs
from barking if she could; I'll talk all I like! Old Stiffen can't see
me till I get past the third currant bush, and I'll take care to be
quiet then--old wretch he is! I'd like to scald him some day to see if
that would limber him up and take him out of the kitchen, a-watchin'
and a-watchin'." Liz, as a matter of fact, talked more than she hoed;
but she had worked hard in a compulsory silence since daybreak, so it
was hardly to be wondered at that she should be both slow and voluble
now.
Myron's own eyes were heavy, and as she bent above her hoeing, her
hands were none too eager for the toil, nor her feet too ready to
advance; she worked on steadily though, and was beginning a new row
before Liz completed her first one; as Liz passed her after some time
to begin her second row, she said in an explosive undertone:
"You can't scare me with no hell-fire after living along o' Mrs.
Deans;" then seeing Myron paid no heed, she muttered to herself, "and
old Stiffen, too, he'd sicken any devil, a-watchin' and a-watchin'."
Liz, it will be seen, was not the model child of story book fame; the
girl was the ordinary type of her class, with a thousand inherited
failings, a dozen minor vices; but against these she had a heart that
ached for love, a tongue that told the truth though it earned a blow; a
generous and impulsive soul: but, alas, in Mrs. Deans' house she
absorbed naught of good to offset her faults, save the virtue of
courage and endurance, which, seeing Myron Holder's bravery, she
cultivated through shame.
The hours passed.
Watching the girls as closely as he could, Henry Deans sat blinking in
the sun, like a malevolent lizard lying in wait for flies.
Mrs. Deans meantime made her way along the road to Mrs. White's. The
White house stood back some distance from the road, and was approached
by a long, narrow lane, bordered by weather-beaten rail fences, none
too well kept, Mrs. Deans thought wrathfully, as she stumbled over a
broken rail; the grass had grown so rank about it that it was almost
entirely hidden. Mrs. Deans inveighed against shiftlessness in
general, and the White type in particular, all the way to the front
door, whose iron handle and heavy knocker bespoke the age of the house;
it was, indeed, one of the old landmarks, built at a time when the
settlers hewed the finest oak trees in the wood for their kitchen
rafters, and begrudged not to use the magnificent black walnuts for
their stairs. This house had been the first one in Jamestown to have
shutters--massive, solid affairs of oak, adjusted and held in place by
heavy bars of iron that extended diagonally across them; the Whites,
however, were much distressed by the old style of these shutters, and a
year or two previously had substituted modern green slatted shutters
upon the front of the house.
[Illustration: MRS. DEANS CALLS ON MRS. WHITE.]
Young Ann White answered Mrs. Deans' knock, and ushered her in with
awkward cordiality. Young Ann White's name was Ossie Annie Abbie Maria
White, named after "four aunts and her pa" as Mrs. White said. The
Jamestown people pronounced the first three names with a strong accent
upon the first syllable, and the middle syllable of Maria they clung to
until they lost breath and relinquished it with a gasp; as they uttered
it, Miss White's name was a sentence by itself.
Mrs. White came bustling in before Mrs. Deans got seated, and after
expressing her pleasure at seeing her, saying, "I declare, Jane, the
sight of you's good for sore eyes!" entered with great zest into the
discussion of village gossip. Mrs. White's sitting room was an
apartment that evidenced loudly the taste and industry of Mrs. White
and her daughter. It had a "boughten" carpet on the floor, and upon
this were strewn hooked mats of strange and wonderful design, trees
with roses, daisies and blue flowers of name unknown, growing
luxuriantly upon every branch; bright yellow horses and green dogs
stood together upon the same mat in millenium-like peace, undisturbed
by the red birds and white cats that enjoyed the same vantage ground
with them; but finer than any of the others was the black mat placed in
the centre of the floor, as being less likely to be trodden upon there;
its design was a salmon-pink girl in a green dress. By what was little
less than inspiration, Mrs. White had formed the eyes out of two large
and glistening black buttons. The chairs were black haircloth, each
adorned with a crocheted tidy worked by Miss White; the making of these
tidies was her life--by means of them she divided her life into times
and seasons. Her one tragedy was compassed by the unholy fate of one
which, being just completed, fell into the paws and from thence to the
jaws of a mischievous collie puppy, and was speedily reduced to rags.
Her great achievement was the making of a "Rose of Sharon" tidy out of
No. 100 thread. She could always fix any date by recalling what tidy
she was engaged upon at the time. There was the "Spider-web tidy," the
"Sheaves of Wheat," the "Rose of Sharon," the "Double Wheel"; one she
called a "Fancy patterning tidy," and another was known as the "One in
strips."
The room had a large old-fashioned mantel-piece of heavy oak; beneath
it had been a huge square fireplace, big enough to hold a roaring fire
of logs, but the massive fire-board stood before it winter and summer
now, for it was never used. The fire-board was also of oak, darkened
to that tint that the virtuoso loves and the dealer in spurious
antiques strives after in vain. But this year, Mrs. White had papered
it over with wall paper, pink roses on a white ground, and a blue
border.
"It does look so much more genteel and cheerful!" said Mrs. White, and
Mrs. Deans agreed with her.
The mantel was decked with a gaudy china vase, with paper flowers in
it; a lamp, in the oil of which was a piece of red flannel, thought to
be decorative as it showed through the glass; a cross cut out of
perforated cardboard, and two curious round objects like spheres of
finely carven wood; these were clove apples. It was common in polite
society in Jamestown to ask "How old is your clove apple?" The answer
was usually given in years, and would have greatly surprised any
stranger to clove apples. To make a clove apple, they selected the
largest specimen of apple to be found (and in Jamestown that meant a
very big apple indeed). Having got the apple, the next proceeding was
to stick it full of cloves, as closely as possible; that was all--the
cloves absorbed and dried the juices of the apple--the apple shrunk and
shrunk, wedging the cloves tighter and tighter together; until at last
they became so tightly welded together by the pressure that it was
absolutely impossible to pull, pry, or cut one out; they were popular
ornaments in Jamestown sitting-rooms. Mrs. White, when any reference
to clove apples was made, invariably said that she remembered the time
when tomatoes were called love apples, and kept for "ornamings," by
which she meant ornaments.
The walls of Mrs. White's sitting-room were hung with pictures; there
was a highly colored print representing a pair of white kittens against
a red velvet background, playing with dominoes; there was a glazed
chromo of a preternaturally blonde baby, sleeping in a preternaturally
green field, bestrewn with preternaturally white daisies; a woodcut of
Abraham Lincoln, one of Queen Victoria, and a diploma for the
excellence of Mr. White's fat cattle completed the decoration of the
walls, except above the door, where purple wools on a perforated
cardboard asked again the piercing question, "What is Home Without a
Mother?"
There was a centre-table, with a large Bible overlaid with a crocheted
mat upon it, and a home-made foot-stool that tripped you up every time
you entered the room.
Mrs. Deans had brought no work with her, and when Mrs. White produced a
basket and began to piece a block of a quilt, Mrs. Deans begged for
thread and needle. Young Ann White rose to get them, and Mrs. Deans
said:
"Well, Ann, now who's this quilt for?" The girl bridled and tossed her
head until her rough hair stood on end; her dull skin and phlegmatic
temperament made blushing an impossibility. Mrs. White broke in with
boisterous good humor:
"Oh, Ann knows who it's fer all right enough; it's a poor hen can't
scratch fer one chick, and that's all Sam and me has got--one
apiece--Ann and Bing. Ann's got eight quilts all pieced now; this is
the album pattern. When I finish this, I'm going to work on a 'Rising
Sun' and--show Mrs. Deans that lace you made fer pilly cases, Ann."
Ann went to obey.
"She's so set on them things," continued her mother in an undertone,
with many nods and headshakings; "so set on 'em. It's really
wonderful; it makes me real nervous sometimes. There was Sarah--my
cousin twice removed by marriage on Sam's side--and when she had
consumpting, nothing would do but she must have a boughten feather;
time and time again I argued with her, but never to no account--a
boughten feather she would have, and being near the end, and being the
only one the Clem Whiteses had, why they took to it that they'd humor
her. So one day off Clem started and got the feather; he went to a
millingnery store, and he says, says he, 'If the feather don't suit the
lady--if it ain't becomin,' he said, for the clerk looked up sharp; 'If
it ain't becomin,' Clem said, being always one to use fine language,
'if it ain't becomin,' I'll bring it back and change it for something
else.'
"So he took the feather home, and three days after Sarah died, real
reconciled 'cause she'd got the feather; they was real afraid she'd ask
them to bury it with her, she thought so much of it, but they'd head
her off if they thought she was going to speak of it, and remind her
her end was near, which didn't make her enjoy the feather any the less,
but just made her say less about it. Well, when the end came, it came
suddent and she had no time to ask any promises; but she held on to it
and when they drawed the pilly away, she still had it in her hand;
well, her mother took it back to the millingnery store and got a whole
black bunnit for the price of that feather. It's terrible what they do
ask for them; they say Sam Warner's wife had more than an idea of
getting one in the city when they went down to sell the wool, but I
guess she thought that would be just a little more than his people
would stand, and give up the idea--but pshaw! I wouldn't be surprised
any day to see her with a feather; she's bought buttoned shoes for that
young one of hers; why, my land! our Ann never had a pair of buttoned
shoes till long after she had spoke in after-meeting.
"But Ann's so set on them things, it fairly makes me wonder if it ain't
a warning that she'll be cut down. You know how 'tis with us all,
Jane, 'the flower fadeth.'" Here Ann returned with various rolls of
crochet trimming for Mrs. Deans to see; she unpinned the ends, extended
them upon her black apron, and waited the praise she deserved. Mrs.
Deans gave it liberally, but did not fail to describe the work she had
seen at Mrs. Wilson's, left there by one of her market customers who
came out to spend the day. Mrs. Deans described this production in
such marvellous terms that Ann gathered up her treasures quite sadly,
and as she pinned up each fat little roll wondered if by any
possibility she could get the pattern.
Ann sat down to a tidy of intricate design--her mother babbled on about
Bing and Ann, and her chickens and her garden; Mrs. Deans felt
irritated. The door of the sitting-room opened upon the veranda; it
was flung wide open, and held back by a cloth-covered brick, and the
sunshine streamed gloriously across the gaudy mats.
Mrs. White was flowery of speech, being much given to the quoting of
Scripture and apt to indulge in poetical similes drawn from the poetry
of Mrs. Hemans, as used in the school-books. She was herself a poet of
wide local repute, having composed the epitaph for a son lost in
babyhood; engraved upon his tombstone it read:
"Good-by, young William Henry White,--
The fever took you from me quite.
The time has come for us to sever;
But, William Henry, not forever."
Mrs. White wore her hair, still dark and abundant, in rows of curls.
It was only after Ann grew up that she discarded the blue ribbon she
had affected since her own girlhood.
Sitting in the sunshine, Mrs. Deans felt this comfortable
self-satisfaction to be an unholy thing upon the part of the Whites.
So she said abruptly:
"Isn't it a terrible thing about Homer Wilson? Well, it'll teach
Marian a lesson; she set too much store on Homer altogether. I knowed
what Homer Wilson was long before this came out!"
"Why, Jane, I never heard anything against Homer! What do you mean?"
asked Mrs. White, looking over her spectacles at Mrs. Deans.
"Why, they say--but I don't want this mentioned, Ann; I want this kept
particular confidential between us two, and no one else to be the
wiser, though the talk's getting round, as others can tell beside me.
But what folks tell is that if Myron Holder's young one ain't named
Homer, it ain't because it hadn't ought to be."
"Well, my lands!" said Mrs. White, whilst her daughter said nothing,
but got up and went out of the room.
"Yes," said Mrs. Deans, "that's what they say, and I could tell things.
But standing in the light of one who's tried to do the best she can for
everybody, I never said a word! But there--there's no use talking over
them; the point was, I felt it a duty when I heard he was sitting up
with your Ann."
Mrs. Deans paused--there was no reply--so she continued: "I felt you
ought to know the truth of how things stood; so putting aside my own
feelings, as I have to do very often, I came to let you know what sort
of a fellow Homer Wilson is."
"To think of it!" said Mrs. White. "Truly 'this life is but a fleeting
show!' Homer Wilson! What he has said to Ann I can't say, not
knowing; but as for sitting up, whatever sitting up was done was done
irregular, now and then, as luck chanced; there was nothing regular, no
promising, no conversational lozenges, no buggy drives. No, Ann ain't
no call to be worried, though it's terrible to think how he'll suffer
when he knows Ann is not for him, can never be his; no, that hope is
gone--no, Homer Wilson, thou must go thy ways withouten help from Ann."
Mrs. Deans felt exasperated. "Such stuff and nonsense," she thought.
"Homer Wilson would never look at Ann White, if he could get another
girl; Ann White, indeed!" She woke from her silence with a start.
"Well, I'm glad it's no worse," she said; "only you'd better tell Ann
to be careful, for people are so ready with their tongues."
"Jest let me hear any one mention Ann's name and his'n," said Mrs.
White; "jest let me hear 'em, they'll have to prove their sayings!
'Tell it in the country, tell it in the court,' is my motto. I'd never
stand no creepin', sneakin' talk about my folks!" Here she was
interrupted by her son Bing, who dashed along the veranda, flung
himself down on the open door-step, and ejaculated:
"Bats bring bedbugs."
"What?" said Mrs. Deans.
"For the land's sake, Bing, what are you talking about?" asked his
mother.
"Bats," said Bing, chattering his words out with his customary
rapidity. "Caught one in the back bedroom, between the shatter and the
window; bites like the mischief; got round ears that stick up--got fur
on it--got leather wings, and bedbugs under 'em."
"Well, it beats all," said his mother, and Mrs. Deans looked at him
curiously. But keen as her eyes were, they saw no change in him from
the boy of four or five years back. For although Bing was between
sixteen and seventeen, he was no larger than a child of twelve: an
ill-conditioned, withered, hard little figure. His frame was spare,
his little face, with its high cheek-bones, was always flushed, as
though fevered by a dry and burning heat; his eyes were very light
blue, very small, very cruel-looking. They were set in a network of
wrinkles. His hands were horny and thin. He stayed but a moment, then
rushed off as quickly as he had come.
"Bing don't grow much," said Mrs. Deans, with a curious intonation in
her voice and a covert glance at Mrs. White.
Mrs. White looked a little uncomfortable, and answered rather hastily:
"No, the Whites is all slow growers. Sam grew after we was married,
and Sam's brother grew till he began to get bald!"
Mrs. Deans preserved a disagreeable silence.
Young Ann entered the room as composedly as she had left it.
"Where have you been, Ann?" asked her mother, a little sharply.
"Fixing curds for the turkeys," said the girl, placidly.
"Well, I declare, I'd forgotten it entire!" said Mrs. White. "I am
glad to find that you have such a thoughtful mind."
"Oh, ma!" said young Ann, in an acme of admiration. Mrs. White smiled,
as who should say, "I can't restrain my muse," and continued in the
same voice: "Shall we go out and see the feathered tribe eat their
humble portion?"
Mrs. Deans rose gladly, and out they went into the sunshine. It was
one of those days--so perfect, if one can enjoy it without toil, in
darkened rooms or shady nooks--so intolerable, if bodily toil beneath
the blazing sun is demanded. They went about leisurely, watched the
melancholy young turkeys picking daintily at their food, encouraged to
the attack by the solitary little chicken that was domiciled in their
coop. When the turkey eggs were hatching, careful poultry-keepers put
one hen egg in with them, so that the chicken might "show them how to
eat." This one, vigorous little black Spanish chick, certainly
performed its duties nobly--its compact little body darting here and
there among the turkeys, staggering about on their long, fragile legs.
They passed Bing, lying on his back under a chestnut tree.
Mrs. Deans and Mrs. White grew very affable over the poultry, and the
clouds dropped down, with the dewy darkness of a moonless summer night,
before Mrs. Deans went home.
She was, upon the whole, dissatisfied with her visit. Those Whites
were so disgustingly equable--so ridiculously pleased with
themselves--and that Bing White! of all the objects! Mrs. Deans slept
at last, her brows drawn in the ill-natured pose her thoughts suggested.
The Whites slumbered peacefully, save where Bing lay, his eyes gleaming
in the dark, as he dreamt long, waking dreams of ghastly pleasures; but
he too slept at last, his fingers twitching as he slept, his lips like
two streaks of blood.
Myron Holder slept the too-sound sleep of weariness, her yellow-haired
baby on her breast, her face placid and calmed into severe lines of
beauty.
Homer Wilson tossed and flung his strong arm above his head and
murmured a woman's name, and crossed it with another, clinched his
upraised hand; and, murmuring, slept.
Deeper and deeper fell the silence; darker and darker grew the
midnight; heavier and heavier sleep sank upon those different hearts;
until they all beat with the measured cadence of oblivion--until,
albeit delayed by devious paths and difficult gates, they all reached
the poppied meadow of deep sleep.