John had two very good reasons for wanting to work for Wully. The first was that at Wully’s he could study all the Sabbath day in peace, which he was not allowed to do at his father’s. To be sure, he was still expected to appear at church, which he did but seldom, and then only with great groans10 and complainings. Wully told him it[167] wouldn’t hurt him to rest his mind an hour or two once a week, and he retorted that after a week in the field, rest was the thing his mind needed least. He scolded about his father’s intolerance. Wully only grinned at him, and remarked that he couldn’t see that the father was much more intolerant than the son. However, if John was seized with a pain on the morning of the Sabbath, Wully wouldn’t minimize his agony when his father inquired about it.
The other reason that John liked being with his brother was that there he could be sure of being paid. The summer before he had hired out to a Yankee at Fisher’s Grove11, for twelve dollars a month, payable12 in gold. He had endured food inexcusably bad, even for those circumstances, and when he had asked for his wages the man had given him, shamefacedly enough to be sure, instead of gold, one hundred and twenty acres of land! John had been barely seventeen at the time and it was years before he acknowledged that in his disappointment he had gone to the woods and cried bitterly. He could afford to tell that story with amusement when there was a town of forty thousand on that land, and he still owned most of it. That year his father had with much difficulty got a deed to the land, and mortgaged it for a little to help with the boy’s schooling13. He and his sister, living together on cornmeal carried from home, and working for their room rent for the kindly14 New Englanders with whom they lived,[168] needed, fortunately, only a little cash. But this next year John was going to Chicago to study law. That was what the teachers advised and that would take real money.
It was one of those interested teachers who unknowingly changed the order of worship at Wully’s that season. One morning, when breakfast was over at dawn, John’s first week there, as Wully reached for The Book, he said in a voice which seemed, as usual, a little impatient, somewhat too eager;
“Let me do the reading, Wully, and you do the praying!”
Wully was rather surprised by such devotion on John’s part.
“All right,” he said, handing him the book.
John began abruptly15 at the first of Isaiah, which was not the place according to the custom of their fathers, and he read stumblingly, with pauses, so that his brother, turning toward him, saw that he was looking at the text only for occasional phrases, trying to read from memory. And when they sat around the table again, in the evening, almost stupid from weariness, John went over the same chapter, but with scarcely any hesitation16. Wully asked him, after prayers, why he had repeated it. John had just picked up the lamp to go up to bed—he had the one lamp, because he studied—and he turned at the bottom of the stairs to answer, the light flickering17 across his neck, where his hickory shirt collar was open. He was six feet,[169] even then, and he had huge broad shoulders strangely awkward. His head was long and narrow, and though he was blistered18 red just then from the sun, his untanned forehead was a clear yellow, unlike any other complexion19 in the family. He had the long upper lip that spoiled the symmetry of so many McLaughlin faces, and a long determined20 chin, and from his deep-set blue eyes he stood gazing at his brother with that speculating keenness with which he examined even the most familiar things.
“Professor Jamison advised me to learn Isaiah this summer. He said it would be a good thing to get the swing of the sentences. We might as well get some good out of worship, I suppose.”
“Well, why not? We know most of it now, don’t we? We’ve heard it all our lives. I told him we knew the Psalms22. We’ll read a chapter twice a day, and we’ll know it.”
“I won’t,” said Wully.
“You’ll know enough of it,” said John, starting up to his reading.
Wully gave Chirstie a significant look.
“Did ever you hear the equal of that?” he asked her. “I wouldn’t know that chapter if I read it every day for a month.” He considered John. It would not have been his father’s way to use the few minutes of the day set apart for the worship of the Most High God, to learn the swing of sentences, whatever that might be. It certainly[170] would not have been Wully’s own way. But it was John’s way, and doubtless a good way, and since John was living with them, he might as well have his way. Chirstie didn’t mind. She only wanted John to be happy.
They were happy as the summer wore on, the three of them working from the first streak23 of dawn to the frog-croaking darkness. The stars in their courses and the clouds in their flights seemed to be working with them that season. Week after week, just as the ground grew ready for it, they watched the desired clouds roll up in great hills against the sky, and pour down long, slow, soaking rains. They watched the sun grow more and more stimulatingly24 warm, and then, just when their corn needed it, grow fiercely hot in its coaxing25. They worked like slaves, of course. But then, they had always worked like slaves. Wully was at the height of his strength that year, apparently26, and he tried to save John, who was, after all, still a growing boy. But John sharply refused to be considered less than any man. Chirstie was cruelly tired every night, with far too much fever. She had her new house to keep as clean as her mother’s linen-hung cabin had been. She had more than a hundred little chickens to feed and water, and to guard from the slow-rising storms, and the low-hovering hawks27. She had an orphan28 lamb to feed. She had washing to do, and ironing, and scrubbing and sewing and cooking, bread making and butter making, with pans and[171] pails and churns to be scalded and kept sweet; she had yarn29 making, and knitting, vegetable drying and wild fruit canning. She had wee Johnnie to care for, and whenever she sat down to nurse him, she fell asleep worn out. More than one pie got itself scorched30 that way that summer.
And with it all, they were so happy that sometimes she had to say to Wully, although he didn’t want her to mention it, “Oh, think of last summer, and of this!” And he would answer, “I certainly had a time without you, Chirstie!” Everything seemed to swell31 the sum of their well-being32. Every noon, if the dinner was not entirely33 ready when Wully was washed for it, he seized his spade and transplanted two or three little trees from their seed-bed to their place in the windbreak. Every evening, tired to death, with the baby in his arms, he went with his wife to see if by chance any seedlings34 had halted, and needed water. Every leaf on the little trees called for comment. There they would stand, looking over their domain35, brushing mosquitoes from their faces. Wheat and corn had surely never grown better than theirs did that year. To John, now, a field of wheat was a field of wheat, capable of being sold for so many dollars. To Wully, as to his father, there was first always, to be sure, the promise of money in growing grain, and he needed money. But besides that, there was more in it than perhaps anyone can say—certainly more than he ever said—all that keeps farm-minded men farming. It was the perfect symbol[172] of rewarded, lavished36 labor37, of requited38 love and care, of creating power, of wifely faithfulness, of the flower and fruit of life, its beauty, its ecstasy39. Wully was too essentially40 a farmer ever to try to express his deep satisfaction in words. But when he saw his own wheat strong and green, swaying in the breezes, flushed with just the first signs of ripening41, the sight made him begin whistling. And when, working to exhaustion42, he saw row after row of corn, hoed by his own hands, standing43 forth44 unchoked by weeds, free to eat and grow like happy children, even though he was too tired to walk erectly45, something within him—maybe his heart—danced with joy. Therefore he was then, as almost always, to be reckoned among the fortunate of the earth, one of those who know ungrudged contented46 exhaustion.
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1
snug
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| adj.温暖舒适的，合身的，安全的；v.使整洁干净，舒适地依靠，紧贴；n.（英）酒吧里的私房 | |
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2
lame
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| adj.跛的，(辩解、论据等)无说服力的 | |
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3
necessitate
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| v.使成为必要，需要 | |
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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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5
heartily
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| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
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6
ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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7
enraged
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| 使暴怒( enrage的过去式和过去分词 )； 歜； 激愤 | |
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8
plunder
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| vt.劫掠财物，掠夺；n.劫掠物，赃物；劫掠 | |
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9
pious
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| adj.虔诚的；道貌岸然的 | |
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10
groans
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| n.呻吟，叹息( groan的名词复数 )；呻吟般的声音v.呻吟( groan的第三人称单数 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦 | |
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11
grove
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| n.林子，小树林，园林 | |
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12
payable
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| adj.可付的，应付的，有利益的 | |
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13
schooling
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| n.教育；正规学校教育 | |
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14
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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15
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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17
flickering
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| adj.闪烁的，摇曳的，一闪一闪的 | |
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18
blistered
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| adj.水疮状的，泡状的v.（使）起水泡( blister的过去式和过去分词 )；（使表皮等）涨破，爆裂 | |
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complexion
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| n.肤色；情况，局面；气质，性格 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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21
gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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22
psalms
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| n.赞美诗( psalm的名词复数 )；圣诗；圣歌；(中的) | |
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23
streak
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| n.条理，斑纹，倾向，少许，痕迹；v.加条纹，变成条纹，奔驰，快速移动 | |
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24
stimulatingly
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| adj.刺激的，有刺激性的v.刺激( stimulate的现在分词 )；激励；使兴奋；起兴奋作用，起刺激作用，起促进作用 | |
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25
coaxing
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| v.哄，用好话劝说( coax的现在分词 )；巧言骗取；哄劝，劝诱；“锻炼”效应 | |
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26
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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27
hawks
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| 鹰( hawk的名词复数 )； 鹰派人物，主战派人物 | |
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28
orphan
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| n.孤儿；adj.无父母的 | |
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29
yarn
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| n.纱，纱线，纺线；奇闻漫谈，旅行轶事 | |
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30
scorched
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| 烧焦，烤焦( scorch的过去式和过去分词 )； 使（植物）枯萎，把…晒枯； 高速行驶； 枯焦 | |
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31
swell
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| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
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32
well-being
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| n.安康，安乐，幸福 | |
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33
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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34
seedlings
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| n.刚出芽的幼苗( seedling的名词复数 ) | |
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35
domain
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| n.(活动等)领域，范围；领地，势力范围 | |
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36
lavished
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| v.过分给予，滥施( lavish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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37
labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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38
requited
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| v.报答( requite的过去式和过去分词 )；酬谢；回报；报复 | |
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39
ecstasy
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| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
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40
essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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41
ripening
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| v.成熟，使熟( ripen的现在分词 )；熟化；熟成 | |
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42
exhaustion
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| n.耗尽枯竭，疲惫，筋疲力尽，竭尽，详尽无遗的论述 | |
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43
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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44
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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45
erectly
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| adv.直立地，垂直地 | |
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46
contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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