North of Boston | Page 4

"Silas is back."?She pushed him outward with her through the door?And shut it after her. "Be kind," she said.?She took the market things from Warren's arms?And set them on the porch, then drew him down?To sit beside her on the wooden steps.?"When was I ever anything but kind to him??But I'll not have the fellow back," he said.?"I told him so last haying, didn't I??'If he left then,' I said, 'that ended it.'?What good is he? Who else will harbour him?At his age for the little he can do??What help he is there's no depending on.?Off he goes always when I need him most.?'He thinks he ought to earn a little pay,?Enough at least to buy tobacco with,?So he won't have to beg and be beholden.'?'All right,' I say, 'I can't afford to pay?Any fixed wages, though I wish I could.'?'Someone else can.' 'Then someone else will have to.'?I shouldn't mind his bettering himself?If that was what it was. You can be certain,?When he begins like that, there's someone at him?Trying to coax him off with pocket-money,--?In haying time, when any help is scarce.?In winter he comes back to us. I'm done."?"Sh! not so loud: he'll hear you," Mary said.?"I want him to: he'll have to soon or late."?"He's worn out. He's asleep beside the stove.?When I came up from Rowe's I found him here,?Huddled against the barn-door fast asleep,?A miserable sight, and frightening, too--?You needn't smile--I didn't recognise him--?I wasn't looking for him--and he's changed.?Wait till you see."?"Where did you say he'd been?"?"He didn't say. I dragged him to the house,?And gave him tea and tried to make him smoke.?I tried to make him talk about his travels.?Nothing would do: he just kept nodding off."?"What did he say? Did he say anything?"?"But little."?"Anything? Mary, confess?He said he'd come to ditch the meadow for me."?"Warren!"?"But did he? I just want to know."?"Of course he did. What would you have him say??Surely you wouldn't grudge the poor old man?Some humble way to save his self-respect.?He added, if you really care to know,?He meant to clear the upper pasture, too.?That sounds like something you have heard before??Warren, I wish you could have heard the way?He jumbled everything. I stopped to look?Two or three times--he made me feel so queer--?To see if he was talking in his sleep.?He ran on Harold Wilson--you remember--?The boy you had in haying four years since.?He's finished school, and teaching in his college.?Silas declares you'll have to get him back.?He says they two will make a team for work:?Between them they will lay this farm as smooth!?The way he mixed that in with other things.?He thinks young Wilson a likely lad, though daft?On education--you know how they fought?All through July under the blazing sun,?Silas up on the cart to build the load,?Harold along beside to pitch it on."?"Yes, I took care to keep well out of earshot."?"Well, those days trouble Silas like a dream.?You wouldn't think they would. How some things linger!?Harold's young college boy's assurance piqued him.?After so many years he still keeps finding?Good arguments he sees he might have used.?I sympathise. I know just how it feels?To think of the right thing to say too late.?Harold's associated in his mind with Latin.?He asked me what I thought of Harold's saying?He studied Latin like the violin?Because he liked it--that an argument!?He said he couldn't make the boy believe?He could find water with a hazel prong--?Which showed how much good school had ever done him.?He wanted to go over that. But most of all?He thinks if he could have another chance?To teach him how to build a load of hay----"?"I know, that's Silas' one accomplishment.?He bundles every forkful in its place,?And tags and numbers it for future reference,?So he can find and easily dislodge it?In the unloading. Silas does that well.?He takes it out in bunches like big birds' nests.?You never see him standing on the hay?He's trying to lift, straining to lift himself."?"He thinks if he could teach him that, he'd be?Some good perhaps to someone in the world.?He hates to see a boy the fool of books.?Poor Silas, so concerned for other folk,?And nothing to look backward to with pride,?And nothing to look forward to with hope,?So now and never any different."?Part of a moon was falling down the west,?Dragging the whole sky with it to the hills.?Its light poured softly in her lap. She saw?And spread her apron to it. She put out her hand?Among the harp-like morning-glory strings,?Taut with the dew from garden bed to eaves,?As if she played unheard the tenderness?That wrought on him beside her in the night.?"Warren," she said, "he has come home to die:?You needn't be afraid he'll leave you this time."?"Home," he mocked gently.?"Yes, what else but home??It all depends on what you mean by home.?Of course he's nothing