North of Boston | Page 5

to us, any more?Than was the hound that came a stranger to us?Out of the woods, worn out upon the trail."?"Home is the place where, when you have to go there,?They have to take you in."?"I should have called it?Something you somehow haven't to deserve."?Warren leaned out and took a step or two,?Picked up a little stick, and brought it back?And broke it in his hand and tossed it by.?"Silas has better claim on us you think?Than on his brother? Thirteen little miles?As the road winds would bring him to his door.?Silas has walked that far no doubt to-day.?Why didn't he go there? His brother's rich,?A somebody--director in the bank."?"He never told us that."?"We know it though."?"I think his brother ought to help, of course.?I'll see to that if there is need. He ought of right?To take him in, and might be willing to--?He may be better than appearances.?But have some pity on Silas. Do you think?If he'd had any pride in claiming kin?Or anything he looked for from his brother,?He'd keep so still about him all this time?"?"I wonder what's between them."?"I can tell you.?Silas is what he is--we wouldn't mind him--?But just the kind that kinsfolk can't abide.?He never did a thing so very bad.?He don't know why he isn't quite as good?As anyone. He won't be made ashamed?To please his brother, worthless though he is."?"I can't think Si ever hurt anyone."?"No, but he hurt my heart the way he lay?And rolled his old head on that sharp-edged chair-back. He wouldn't let me put him on the lounge.?You must go in and see what you can do.?I made the bed up for him there to-night.?You'll be surprised at him--how much he's broken.?His working days are done; I'm sure of it."?"I'd not be in a hurry to say that."?"I haven't been. Go, look, see for yourself.?But, Warren, please remember how it is:?He's come to help you ditch the meadow.?He has a plan. You mustn't laugh at him.?He may not speak of it, and then he may.?I'll sit and see if that small sailing cloud?Will hit or miss the moon."?It hit the moon.?Then there were three there, making a dim row,?The moon, the little silver cloud, and she.?Warren returned--too soon, it seemed to her,?Slipped to her side, caught up her hand and waited.?"Warren," she questioned.?"Dead," was all he answered.
The Mountain
THE mountain held the town as in a shadow?I saw so much before I slept there once:?I noticed that I missed stars in the west,?Where its black body cut into the sky.?Near me it seemed: I felt it like a wall?Behind which I was sheltered from a wind.?And yet between the town and it I found,?When I walked forth at dawn to see new things,?Were fields, a river, and beyond, more fields.?The river at the time was fallen away,?And made a widespread brawl on cobble-stones;?But the signs showed what it had done in spring;?Good grass-land gullied out, and in the grass?Ridges of sand, and driftwood stripped of bark.?I crossed the river and swung round the mountain.?And there I met a man who moved so slow?With white-faced oxen in a heavy cart,?It seemed no hand to stop him altogether.?"What town is this?" I asked.?"This? Lunenburg."?Then I was wrong: the town of my sojourn,?Beyond the bridge, was not that of the mountain,?But only felt at night its shadowy presence.?"Where is your village? Very far from here?"?"There is no village--only scattered farms.?We were but sixty voters last election.?We can't in nature grow to many more:?That thing takes all the room!" He moved his goad.?The mountain stood there to be pointed at.?Pasture ran up the side a little way,?And then there was a wall of trees with trunks:?After that only tops of trees, and cliffs?Imperfectly concealed among the leaves.?A dry ravine emerged from under boughs?Into the pasture.?"That looks like a path.?Is that the way to reach the top from here?--?Not for this morning, but some other time:?I must be getting back to breakfast now."?"I don't advise your trying from this side.?There is no proper path, but those that have?Been up, I understand, have climbed from Ladd's.?That's five miles back. You can't mistake the place:?They logged it there last winter some way up.?I'd take you, but I'm bound the other way."?"You've never climbed it?"?"I've been on the sides?Deer-hunting and trout-fishing. There's a brook?That starts up on it somewhere--I've heard say?Right on the top, tip-top--a curious thing.?But what would interest you about the brook,?It's always cold in summer, warm in winter.?One of the great sights going is to see?It steam in winter like an ox's breath,?Until the bushes all along its banks?Are inch-deep with the frosty spines and bristles--?You know the kind. Then let the sun shine on it!"?"There ought to be a view around the world?From such a mountain--if it isn't wooded?Clear to the top." I