We two had chosen for our resting-place the little mow2 of half a load or so, which had not been stowed away above, but lay ready for present use over by the side-door opening on the cow-yard. Temporary beds had been spread for the women with fresh straw and blankets at the further end of the central threshing-floor. Abner himself had taken one of the rescued ticks and a quilt over to the other end, and stretched his ponderous3 length out across the big doors, with the gun by his side. No one had, of course, dreamed of undressing.
Only a few minutes of wakefulness sufficed to throw me into a desperate state of fidgets. The hay seemed full of strange creeping noises. The whole big barn echoed with the boisterous4 ticking of the old eight-day clock which had been saved from the wreck5 of the kitchen, and which M’rye had set going again on the seat of the democrat6 wagon7. And then Hurley!
I began to be convinced, now, that I was coming down with a great spell of sickness—perhaps even “the fever.” Yes, it undoubtedly8 was the fever. I could feel it in my bones, which now started up queer prickly sensations on novel lines, quite as if they were somebody else’s bones instead. My breathing, indeed, left a good deal to be desired from the true fever standpoint. It was not nearly so rapid or convulsive as I understood that the breathing of a genuine fever victim ought to be. But that, no doubt, would come soon enough—nay! was it not already coming? I thought, upon examination, that I did breathe more swiftly than before. And oh! that Hurley!
As noiselessly as possible I made my way, half-rolling, half-sliding, off the hay, and got on my feet on the floor. It was pitch dark, but I could feel along the old disused stanchion-row to the corner; thence it was plain sailing over to where Abner was sleeping by the big front doors. I would not dream of rousing him if he was in truth asleep, but it would be something to be nigh him, in case the fever should take a fatal turn before morning. I would just cuddle down on the floor near to him, and await events.
When I had turned the corner, it surprised me greatly to see ahead of me, over at the front of the barn, the reflection of a light. Creeping along toward it, I came out upon Abner, seated with his back against one of the doors, looking over an account-book by the aid of a lantern perched on a box at his side. He had stood the frame of an old bob-sleigh on end close by, and hung a horse-blanket over it, so that the light might not disturb the women-folk at the other end of the barn. The gun lay on the floor beside him.
He looked up at my approach, and regarded me with something, I fancied, of disapprobation in his habitually10 grave expression.
“Well, old seventy-six, what’s the matter with you?” he asked, keeping his voice down to make as little noise as possible.
I answered in the same cautious tones that I was feeling bad. Had any encouragement suggested itself in the farmer’s mien11, I was prepared to overwhelm him with a relation of my symptoms in detail. But he shook his head instead.
“You’ll have to wait till morning, to be sick,” he said—“that is, to get ’tended to. I don’t know anything about such things, an’ I wouldn’t wake M’rye up now for a whole baker’s dozen o’ you chaps.” Seeing my face fall at this sweeping12 declaration, he proceeded to modify it in a kindlier tone. “Now you just lay down again, sonny,” he added, “an’ you’ll be to sleep in no time, an’ in the morning M’rye ’ll fix up something for ye. This ain’t no fit time for white folks to be belly-achin’ around.”
“I kind o’ thought I’d feel better if I was sleeping over here near you,” I ventured now to explain, and his nod was my warrant for tiptoeing across to the heap of disorganized furniture, and getting out some blankets and a comforter, which I arranged in the corner a few yards away and simply rolled myself up in, with my face turned away from the light? It was better over here than with Hurley, and though that prompt sleep which the farmer had promised did not come, I at least was drowsily13 conscious of an improved physical condition.
Perhaps I drifted off more than half-way into dreamland, for it was with a start that all at once I heard some one close by talking with Abner.
“I saw you were up, Mr. Beech14”—it was Esther Hagadorn who spoke15—“and I don’t seem able to sleep, and I thought, if you didn’t mind, I’d come over here.”
“Why, of course,” the farmer responded. “Just bring up a chair there, an’ sit down. That’s it—wrap the shawl around you good. It’s a cold night—snowin’ hard outside.”
Both had spoken in muffled16 tones, so as not to disturb the others. This same dominant17 notion of keeping still deterred18 me from turning over, in order to be able to see them. I expected to hear them discuss my illness, but they never referred to it. Instead, there was what seemed a long silence. Then the school-ma’am spoke. “I can’t begin to tell you,” she said, “how glad I am that you and your wife aren’t a bit cast down by the—the calamity19.”
“No,” came back Abner’s voice, buoyant even in its half-whisper, “we’re all right. I’ve be’n sort o’ figurin’ up here, an’ they ain’t much real harm done. I’m insured pretty well. Of course, this bein’ obleeged to camp out in a hay-barn might be improved on, but then it’s a change—somethin’ out o’ the ordinary rut—an’ it’ll do us good. I’ll have the carpenters over from Juno Mills in the forenoon, an’ if they push things, we can have a roof over us again before Christmas. It could be done even sooner, p’raps, only they ain’t any neighbors to help me with a raisin’ bee. They’re willin’ enough to burn my house down, though. However, I don’t want them not an atom more’n they want me.”
There was no trace of anger in his voice. He spoke like one contemplating20 the unalterable conditions of life.
“Did they really, do you believe, set it on fire?” Esther asked, intently.
“No, I think it caught from that fool fire they started around back of the house, to heat their fool tar9 by. The wind was blowing a regular gale21, you know. Janey Wilcox, she will have it that that Roselle Upman set it on purpose. But then, she don’t like him—an’ I can’t blame her much, for that matter. Once Otis Barnum was seein’ her home from singin’ school, an’ when he was goin’ back alone this Roselle Upman waylaid22 him in the dark, an’ pitched onto him, an’ broke his collar-bone. I always thought it puffed23 Janey up some, this bein’ fought over like that, but it made her mad to have Otis hurt on her account, an’ then nothing come of it. I wouldn’t ’a’ minded pepperin’ Roselle’s legs a trifle, if I’d had a barrel loaded, say, with bird-shot. He’s a nuisance to the whole neighborhood. He kicks up a fight at every dance he goes to, all winter long, an’ hangs around the taverns24 day in an’ day out, inducin’ young men to drink an’ loaf. I thought a fellow like him ’d be sure to go off to the war, an’ so good riddance; but no! darned if the coward don’t go an’ get his front teeth pulled, so’t he can’t bite ca’tridges, an’ jest stay around; a worse nuisance than ever! I’d half forgive that miserable25 war if it—only took off the—the right men.”
“Mr. Beech,” said Esther, in low fervent26 tones, measuring each word as it fell, “you and I, we must forgive that war together!”
I seemed to feel the farmer shaking his head. He said nothing in reply.
“I’m beginning to understand how you’ve felt about it all along,” the girl went on, after a pause. “I knew the fault must be in my ignorance, that our opinions of plain right and plain wrong should be such poles apart. I got a school-friend of mine, whose father is your way of thinking, to send me all the papers that came to their house, and I’ve been going through them religiously—whenever I could be quite alone. I don’t say I don’t think you’re wrong, because I do, but I am getting to understand how you should believe yourself to be right.”
She paused as if expecting a reply, but Abner only said, “Go on,” after some hesitation27, and she went on:
“Now take the neighbors all about here—”
“Excuse me!” broke in the farmer. “I guess if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not. They’re too rich for my blood.”
“Take these very neighbors,” pursued Esther, with gentle determination. “Something must be very wrong indeed when they behave to you the way they do. Why, I know that even now, right down in their hearts, they recognize that you’re far and away the best man in Agrippa. Why, I remember, Mr. Beech, when I first applied28, and you were school-commissioner, and you sat there through the examination—why, you were the only one whose opinion I gave a rap for. When you praised me, why, I was prouder of it than if you had been a Regent of the University. And I tell you, everybody all around here feels at bottom just as I do.”
“They take a dummed curious way o’ showin’ it, then,” commented Abner, roundly.
“It isn’t that they’re trying to show at all,” said Esther. “They feel that other things are more important. They’re all wrought29 up over the war. How could it be otherwise when almost every one of them has got a brother, or a father, or—or—a son—down there in the South, and every day brings news that some of these have been shot dead, and more still wounded and crippled, and others—others, that God only knows what has become of them—oh, how can they help feeling that way? I don’t know that I ought to say it”—the school-ma’am stopped to catch her breath, and hesitated, then went on—“but yes, you’ll understand me now—there was a time here, not so long ago, Mr. Beech, when I downright hated you—you and M’rye both!”
This was important enough to turn over for. I flopped30 as unostentatiously as possible, and neither of them gave any sign of having noted31 my presence. The farmer sat with his back against the door, the quilt drawn32 up to his waist, his head bent33 in silent meditation34. His whole profile was in deep shadow from where I lay—darkly massive and powerful and solemn. Esther was watching him with all her eyes, leaning forward from her chair, the lantern-light full upon her eager face.
“M’rye an’ I don’t lay ourselves out to be specially35 bad folks, as folks go,” the farmer said at last, by way of deprecation. “We’ve got our faults, of course, like the rest, but—”
“No,” interrupted Esther, with a half-tearful smile in her eyes. “You only pretend to have faults. You really haven’t got any at all.”
The shadowed outline of Abner’s face softened36. “Why, that is a fault itself, ain’t it?” he said, as if pleased with his logical acuteness.
The crowing of some foolish rooster, growing tired of waiting for the belated November daylight, fell upon the silence from one of the buildings near by.
Abner Beech rose to his feet with ponderous slowness, pushing the bedclothes aside with his boot, and stood beside Esther’s chair. He laid his big hand on her shoulder with a patriarchal gesture.
“Come now,” he said, gently, “you go back to bed, like a good girl, an’ get some sleep. It’ll be all right.”
The girl rose in turn, bearing her shoulder so that the fatherly hand might still remain upon it. “Truly?” she asked, with a new light upon her pale face.
“Yes—truly!” Abner replied, gravely nodding his head.
Esther took the hand from her shoulder, and shook it in both of hers. “Good-night again, then,” she said, and turned to go.
Suddenly there resounded37 the loud rapping of a stick on the barn-door, close by my head.
Abner squared his huge shoulders and threw a downright glance at the gun on the floor “Well?” he called out..
“Is my da’ater inside there?”
We all knew that thin, high-pitched, querulous voice. It was old “Jee”’ Hagadorn who was outside.
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1
awakened
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| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
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2
mow
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| v.割（草、麦等），扫射，皱眉；n.草堆，谷物堆 | |
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3
ponderous
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| adj.沉重的，笨重的，(文章)冗长的 | |
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4
boisterous
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| adj.喧闹的，欢闹的 | |
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5
wreck
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| n.失事，遇难；沉船；vt.(船等)失事，遇难 | |
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6
democrat
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| n.民主主义者，民主人士；民主党党员 | |
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7
wagon
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| n.四轮马车，手推车，面包车；无盖运货列车 | |
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8
undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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9
tar
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| n.柏油，焦油；vt.涂或浇柏油/焦油于 | |
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10
habitually
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| ad.习惯地，通常地 | |
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11
mien
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| n.风采；态度 | |
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12
sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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13
drowsily
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| adv.睡地，懒洋洋地，昏昏欲睡地 | |
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14
beech
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| n.山毛榉；adj.山毛榉的 | |
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15
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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16
muffled
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| adj.（声音）被隔的；听不太清的；（衣服）裹严的；蒙住的v.压抑，捂住( muffle的过去式和过去分词 )；用厚厚的衣帽包着（自己） | |
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17
dominant
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| adj.支配的，统治的；占优势的；显性的；n.主因，要素，主要的人(或物)；显性基因 | |
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18
deterred
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| v.阻止，制止( deter的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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19
calamity
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| n.灾害，祸患，不幸事件 | |
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20
contemplating
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| 深思，细想，仔细考虑( contemplate的现在分词 )； 注视，凝视； 考虑接受（发生某事的可能性）； 深思熟虑，沉思，苦思冥想 | |
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21
gale
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| n.大风，强风，一阵闹声（尤指笑声等） | |
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22
waylaid
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| v.拦截，拦路( waylay的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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23
puffed
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| adj.疏松的v.使喷出( puff的过去式和过去分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
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24
taverns
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| n.小旅馆，客栈，酒馆( tavern的名词复数 ) | |
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25
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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26
fervent
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| adj.热的，热烈的，热情的 | |
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27
hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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28
applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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29
wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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30
flopped
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| v.（指书、戏剧等）彻底失败( flop的过去式和过去分词 )；（因疲惫而）猛然坐下；（笨拙地、不由自主地或松弛地）移动或落下；砸锅 | |
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31
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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32
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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33
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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34
meditation
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| n.熟虑，（尤指宗教的）默想，沉思，（pl.）冥想录 | |
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35
specially
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| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
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36
softened
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| （使）变软( soften的过去式和过去分词 )； 缓解打击； 缓和； 安慰 | |
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37
resounded
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| v.（指声音等）回荡于某处( resound的过去式和过去分词 )；产生回响；（指某处）回荡着声音 | |
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