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She stood
against the kitchen sink, and looked
Over the sink
out through a dusty window
At weeds the water from
the sink made tall.
She wore her cape; her hat was in
her hand.
Behind her was confusion in the room,
Of
chairs turned upside down to sit like people
In other
chairs, and something, come to look,
For every room a
house has-parlor, bed-room,
And dining-room-thrown
pell-mell in the kitchen.
And now and then a smudged,
infernal face
Looked in a door behind her and
addressed
Her back. She always answered without
turning.
"Where will I put this walnut bureau,
lady?"
"Put it on top of something that's on top
Of something else," she laughed. "Oh, put it where
You can to-night, and go. It's almost dark;
You must
be getting started back to town."
Another blackened
face thrust in and looked
And smiled, and when she
did not turn, spoke gently,
"What are you seeing out
the window, lady?"
"Never was I beladied so
before.
Would evidence of having been called lady
More than so many times make me a lady
In common law,
I wonder."
"But I ask,
What are you seeing out
the window, lady?"
"What I'll be seeing more of
in the years
To come as here I stand and go the round
Of many plates with towels many times."
"And what
is that? You only put me off."
"Rank weeds that
love the water from the dish-pan
More than some women
like the dish-pan, Joe;
A little stretch of
mowing-field for you;
Not much of that until I come
to woods
That end all. And it's scarce enough to call
A view."
"And yet you think you like it, dear?"
"That's what you're so concerned to know! You hope
I like it. Bang goes something big away
Off there
upstairs. The very tread of men
As great as those is
shattering to the frame
Of such a little house. Once
left alone,
You and I, dear, will go with softer
steps
Up and down stairs and through the rooms, and
none
But sudden winds that snatch them from our hands
Will ever slam the doors."
"I think you see
More than you like to own to out that window."
"No; for besides the things I tell you of,
I only see
the years. They come and go
In alternation with the
weeds, the field,
The wood."
"What kind of
years?"
"Why, latter years-
Different from early
years."
"I see them, too.
You didn't count them?"
"No, the further off
So ran together that I didn't
try to.
It can scarce be that they would be in number
We'd care to know, for we are not young now.
And bang
goes something else away off there.
It sounds as if
it were the men went down,
And every crash meant one
less to return
To lighted city streets we, too, have
known,
But now are giving up for country darkness."
"Come from that window where you see too much for
me,
And take a livelier view of things from here.
They're going. Watch this husky swarming up
Over the
wheel into the sky-high seat,
Lighting his pipe now,
squinting down his nose
At the flame burning downward
as he sucks it."
"See how it makes his nose-side
bright, a proof
How dark it's getting. Can you tell
what time
It is by that? Or by the moon? The new
moon!
What shoulder did I see her over? Neither.
A
wire she is of silver, as new as we
To everything.
Her light won't last us long.
It's something, though,
to know we're going to have her
Night after night and
stronger every night
To see us through our first two
weeks. But, Joe,
The stove! Before they go! Knock on
the window;
Ask them to help you get it on its feet.
We stand here dreaming. Hurry! Call them back!"
"They're not gone yet."
"We've got to have the
stove,
Whatever else we want for. And a light.
Have we a piece of candle if the lamp
And oil are
buried out of reach?"
Again
The house was full
of tramping, and the dark,
Door-filling men burst in
and seized the stove.
A cannon-mouth-like hole was in
the wall,
To which they set it true by eye; and then
Came up the jointed stovepipe in their hands,
So much
too light and airy for their strength
It almost
seemed to come ballooning up,
Slipping from clumsy
clutches toward the ceiling.
"A fit!" said one, and
banged a stovepipe shoulder.
"It's good luck when you
move in to begin
With good luck with your stovepipe.
Never mind,
It's not so bad in the country, settled
down,
When people 're getting on in life, You'll like
it."
Joe said: "You big boys ought to find a farm,
And make good farmers, and leave other fellows
The
city work to do. There's not enough
For everybody as
it is in there."
"God!" one said wildly, and, when no
one spoke:
"Say that to Jimmy here. He needs a farm."
But Jimmy only made his jaw recede
Fool-like, and
rolled his eyes as if to say
He saw himself a farmer.
Then there was a French boy
Who said with seriousness
that made them laugh,
"Ma friend, you ain't know what
it is you're ask."
He doffed his cap and held it with
both hands
Across his chest to make as 'twere a bow:
"We're giving you our chances on de farm."
And then
they all turned to with deafening boots
And put each
other bodily out of the house.
"Goodby to them! We
puzzle them. They think-
I don't know what they think
we see in what
They leave us to: that pasture slope
that seems
The back some farm presents us; and your
woods
To northward from your window at the sink,
Waiting to steal a step on us whenever
We drop our
eyes or turn to other things,
As in the game
'Ten-step' the children play."
"Good boys they
seemed, and let them love the city.
All they could
say was 'God!' when you proposed
Their coming out and
making useful farmers."
"Did they make something
lonesome go through you?
It would take more than them
to sicken you-
Us of our bargain. But they left us so
As to our fate, like fools past reasoning with.
They
almost shook me."
"It's all so much
What we
have always wanted, I confess
It's seeming bad for a
moment makes it seem
Even worse still, and so on
down, down, down.
It's nothing; it's their leaving us
at dusk.
I never bore it well when people went.
The first night after guests have gone, the house
Seems haunted or exposed. I always take
A personal
interest in the locking up
At bedtime; but the
strangeness soon wears off."
He fetched a dingy
lantern from behind
A door. "There's that we didn't
lose! And these!"-
Some matches he unpocketed. "For
food-
The meals we've had no one can take from us.
I wish that everything on earth were just
As certain
as the meals we've had. I wish
The meals we haven't
had were, anyway.
What have you you know where to lay
your hands on?"
"The bread we bought in passing
at the store.
There's butter somewhere, too."
"Let's rend the bread.
I'll light the fire for
company for you;
You'll not have any other company
Till Ed begins to get out on a Sunday
To look us over
and give us his idea
Of what wants pruning,
shingling, breaking up.
He'll know what he would do
if he were we,
And all at once. He'll plan for us and
plan
To help us, but he'll take it out in planning.
Well, you can set the table with the loaf.
Let's see
you find your loaf. I'll light the fire.
I like
chairs occupying other chairs
Not offering a lady-"
"There again, Joe! You're tired."
"I'm
drunk-nonsensical tired out;
Don't mind a word I say.
It's a day's work
To empty one house of all household
goods
And fill another with 'em fifteen miles away,
Although you do no more than dump them down."
"Dumped down in paradise we are and happy."
"It's
all so much what I have always wanted,
I can't
believe it's what you wanted, too."
"Shouldn't
you like to know?"
"I'd like to know
If it is
what you wanted, then how much
You wanted it for me."
"A troubled conscience!
You don't want me to tell
if I don't know."
"I don't want to find out what
can't be known.
But who first said the word to
come?"
"My dear,
It's who first thought the
thought. You're searching, Joe,
For things that don't
exist; I mean beginnings.
Ends and beginnings-there
are no such things.
There are only middles."
"What is this?"
"This life?
Our sitting here by
lantern-light together
Amid the wreckage of a former
home?
You won't deny the lantern isn't new.
The
stove is not, and you are not to me,
Nor I to you."
"Perhaps you never were?"
"It would take me
forever to recite
All that's not new in where we find
ourselves.
New is a word for fools in towns who think
Style upon style in dress and thought at last
Must
get somewhere. I've heard you say as much.
No, this
is no beginning."
"Then an end?"
"End is a
gloomy word."
"Is it too late
To drag you out for
just a good-night call
On the old peach trees on the
knoll to grope
By starlight in the grass for a last
peach
The neighbors may not have taken as their right
When the house wasn't lived in? I've been looking:
I
doubt if they have left us many grapes.
Before we set
ourselves to right the house,
The first thing in the
morning, out we go
To go the round of apple, cherry,
peach,
Pine, alder, pasture, mowing, well, and brook.
All of a farm it is."
"I know this much:
I'm
going to put you in your bed, if first
I have to make
you build it. Come, the light."
When there was no
more lantern in the kitchen,
The fire got out through
crannies in the stove
And danced in yellow wrigglers
on the ceiling,
As much at home as if they'd always
danced there.
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