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"WILLIS, I
didn't want you here to-day:
The lawyer's coming for
the company.
I'm going to sell my soul, or, rather,
feet.
Five hundred dollars for the pair, you know."
"With you the feet have nearly been the soul;
And if
you're going to sell them to the devil,
I want to see
you do it. When's he coming?"
"I half suspect you
knew, and came on purpose
To try to help me drive a
better bargain."
"Well, if it's true! Yours are no
common feet.
The lawyer don't know what it is he's
buying:
So many miles you might have walked you won't
walk.
You haven't run your forty orchids down.
What does he think?--How are the blessed feet?
The
doctor's sure you're going to walk again?"
"He thinks
I'll hobble. It's both legs and feet."
"They must be
terrible--I mean to look at."
"I haven't dared to
look at them uncovered.
Through the bed blankets I
remind myself
Of a starfish laid out with rigid
points."
"The wonder is it hadn't been your head."
"It's hard to tell you how I managed it.
When I saw
the shaft had me by the coat,
I didn't try too long
to pull away,
Or fumble for my knife to cut away,
I just embraced the shaft and rode it out--
Till
Weiss shut off the water in the wheel-pit.
That's how
I think I didn't lose my head.
But my legs got their
knocks against the ceiling."
"Awful. Why didn't they
throw off the belt
Instead of going clear down in the
wheel-pit?"
"They say some time was wasted on the
belt--
Old streak of leather--doesn't love me much
Because I make him spit fire at my knuckles,
The way
Ben Franklin used to make the kite-string.
That must
be it. Some days he won't stay on.
That day a woman
couldn't coax him off.
He's on his rounds now with
his tail in his mouth
Snatched right and left across
the silver pulleys.
Everything goes the same without
me there.
You can hear the small buzz saws whine, the
big saw
Caterwaul to the hills around the village
As they both bite the wood. It's all our music.
One
ought as a good villager to like it.
No doubt it has
a sort of prosperous sound,
And it's our life."
"Yes, when it's not our death."
"You make that sound
as if it wasn't so
With everything. What we live by
we die by.
I wonder where my lawyer is. His train's
in.
I want this over with; I'm hot and tired."
"You're getting ready to do something foolish."
"Watch for him, will you, Will? You let him in.
I'd
rather Mrs. Corbin didn't know;
I've boarded here so
long, she thinks she owns me.
You're bad enough to
manage without her."
"And I'm going to be worse
instead of better.
You've got to tell me how far this
is gone:
Have you agreed to any price?"
"Five
hundred.
Five hundred--five--five! One, two, three,
four, five.
You needn't look at me."
"I don't
believe you."
"I told you, Willis, when you first
came in.
Don't you be hard on me. I have to take
What I can get. You see they have the feet,
Which
gives them the advantage in the trade.
I can't get
back the feet in any case."
"But your flowers, man,
you're selling out your flowers."
"Yes, that's one
way to put it--all the flowers
Of every kind
everywhere in this region
For the next forty
summers--call it forty.
But I'm not selling those,
I'm giving them,
They never earned me so much as one
cent:
Money can't pay me for the loss of them.
No,
the five hundred was the sum they named
To pay the
doctor's bill and tide me over.
It's that or fight,
and I don't want to fight--
I just want to get
settled in my life,
Such as it's going to be, and
know the worst,
Or best--it may not be so bad. The
firm
Promise me all the shooks I want to nail."
"But what about your flora of the valley?"
"You have
me there. But that--you didn't think
That was worth
money to me? Still I own
It goes against me not to
finish it
For the friends it might bring me. By the
way,
I had a letter from Burroughs--did I tell you?--
About my Cyprepedium reginæ;
He says it's not
reported so far north.
There! there's the bell. He's
rung. But you go down
And bring him up, and don't let
Mrs. Corbin.--
Oh, well, we'll soon be through with
it. I'm tired."
Willis brought up besides the Boston
lawyer
A little barefoot girl who in the noise
Of
heavy footsteps in the old frame house,
And baritone
importance of the lawyer,
Stood for a while unnoticed
with her hands
Shyly behind her.
"Well, and how is
Mister----"
The lawyer was already in his satchel
As if for papers that might bear the name
He hadn't
at command. "You must excuse me,
I dropped in at the
mill and was detained."
"Looking round, I suppose,"
said Willis.
"Yes,
Well, yes."
"Hear anything
that might prove useful?"
The Broken One saw Anne.
"Why, here is Anne.
What do you want, dear? Come,
stand by the bed;
Tell me what is it?" Anne just
wagged her dress
With both hands held behind her.
"Guess," she said.
"Oh, guess which hand? My my! Once
on a time
I knew a lovely way to tell for certain
By looking in the ears. But I forget it.
Er, let me
see. I think I'll take the right.
That's sure to be
right even if it's wrong.
Come, hold it out. Don't
change.--A Ram's Horn orchid!
A Ram's Horn! What
would I have got, I wonder,
If I had chosen left.
Hold out the left.
Another Ram's Horn! Where did you
find those,
Under what beech tree, on what
woodchuck's knoll?"
Anne looked at the large lawyer
at her side,
And thought she wouldn't venture on so
much.
"Were there no others?"
"There were four or
five.
I knew you wouldn't let me pick them all."
"I wouldn't--so I wouldn't. You're the girl!
You see
Anne has her lesson learned by heart."
"I wanted
there should be some there next year."
"Of course you
did. You left the rest for seed,
And for the
backwoods woodchuck. You're the girl!
A Ram's Horn
orchid seedpod for a woodchuck
Sounds something like.
Better than farmer's beans
To a discriminating
appetite,
Though the Ram's Horn is seldom to be had
In bushel lots--doesn't come on the market.
But,
Anne, I'm troubled; have you told me all?
You're
hiding something. That's as bad as lying.
You ask
this lawyer man. And it's not safe
With a lawyer at
hand to find you out.
Nothing is hidden from some
people, Anne.
You don't tell me that where you found
a Ram's Horn
You didn't find a Yellow Lady's Slipper.
What did I tell you? What? I'd blush, I would.
Don't
you defend yourself. If it was there,
Where is it
now, the Yellow Lady's Slipper?"
"Well, wait--it's
common--it's too common."
"Common?
The Purple
Lady's Slipper's commoner."
"I didn't bring a Purple
Lady's Slipper
To You--to you I mean--they're both
too common."
The lawyer gave a laugh among his papers
As if with some idea that she had scored.
"I've
broken Anne of gathering bouquets.
It's not fair to
the child. It can't be helped though:
Pressed into
service means pressed out of shape.
Somehow I'll make
it right with her--she'll see.
She's going to do my
scouting in the field,
Over stone walls and all along
a wood
And by a river bank for water flowers,
The
floating Heart, with small leaf like a heart,
And at
the sinus under water a fist
Of little fingers all
kept down but one,
And that thrust up to blossom in
the sun
As if to say, 'You! You're the Heart's
desire.'
Anne has a way with flowers to take the
place
Of that she's lost: she goes down on one knee
And lifts their faces by the chin to hers
And says
their names, and leaves them where they are."
The
lawyer wore a watch the case of which
Was cunningly
devised to make a noise
Like a small pistol when he
snapped it shut
At such a time as this. He snapped it
now.
"Well, Anne, go, dearie. Our affair will wait.
The lawyer man is thinking of his train.
He wants to
give me lots and lots of money
Before he goes,
because I hurt myself,
And it may take him I don't
know how long.
But put our flowers in water first.
Will, help her:
The pitcher's too full for her.
There's no cup?
Just hook them on the inside of the
pitcher.
Now run.--Get out your documents! You see
I have to keep on the good side of Anne.
I'm a great
boy to think of number one.
And you can't blame me in
the place I'm in.
Who will take care of my
necessities
Unless I do?"
"A pretty interlude,"
The lawyer said. "I'm sorry, but my train--
Luckily
terms are all agreed upon.
You only have to sign your
name. Right--there."
"You, Will, stop making faces.
Come round here
Where you can't make them. What is it
you want?
I'll put you out with Anne. Be good or go."
"You don't mean you will sign that thing unread?"
"Make yourself useful then, and read it for me.
Isn't
it something I have seen before?"
"You'll find it is.
Let your friend look at it."
"Yes, but all that takes
time, and I'm as much
In haste to get it over with as
you.
But read it, read it. That's right, draw the
curtain:
Half the time I don't know what's troubling
me.--
What do you say, Will? Don't you be a fool,
You! crumpling folkses legal documents.
Out with it
if you've any real objection."
"Five hundred
dollars!"
"What would you think right?"
"A
thousand wouldn't be a cent too much;
You know it,
Mr. Lawyer. The sin is
Accepting anything before he
knows
Whether he's ever going to walk again.
It
smells to me like a dishonest trick."
"I think--I
think--from what I heard to-day--
And saw myself--he
would be ill-advised----"
"What did you hear, for
instance?" Willis said.
"Now the place where the
accident occurred----"
The Broken One was twisted in
his bed.
"This is between you two apparently.
Where I come in is what I want to know.
You stand up
to it like a pair of cocks.
Go outdoors if you want
to fight. Spare me.
When you come back, I'll have the
papers signed.
Will pencil do? Then, please, your
fountain pen.
One of you hold my head up from the
pillow."
Willis flung off the bed. "I wash my hands--
I'm no match--no, and don't pretend to be----"
The
lawyer gravely capped his fountain pen.
"You're doing
the wise thing: you won't regret it.
We're very sorry
for you."
Willis sneered:
"Who's we?--some
stockholders in Boston?
I'll go outdoors, by gad, and
won't come back."
"Willis, bring Anne back with you
when you come.
Yes. Thanks for caring. Don't mind
Will: he's savage.
He thinks you ought to pay me for
my flowers.
You don't know what I mean about the
flowers.
Don't stop to try to now. You'll miss your
train.
Good-bye." He flung his arms around his face.
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