No More Learning

THE EXPOSED NEST


You were forever finding some new play.
So when I saw you down on hands and knees
In the meadow, busy with the new-cut hay,
Trying, I thought, to set it up on end,
I went to show you how to make it stay,
If that was your idea, against the breeze,
And, if you asked me, even help pretend
To make it root again and grow afresh.
But 'twas no make-believe with you to-day,
Nor was the grass itself your real concern,
Though I found your hand full of wilted fern,
Steel-bright June-grass, and blackening heads of clover.
'Twas a nest full of young birds on the ground
The cutter-bar had just gone champing over
(Miraculously without tasting flesh)
And left defenseless to the heat and light.
You wanted to restore them to their right
Of something interposed between their sight
And too much world at once--could means be found.
The way the nest-full every time we stirred
Stood up to us as to a mother-bird
Whose coming home has been too long deferred,
Made me ask would the mother-bird return
And care for them in such a change of scene
And might our meddling make her more afraid.
That was a thing we could not wait to learn.
We saw the risk we took in doing good,
But dared not spare to do the best we could
Though harm should come of it; so built the screen
You had begun, and gave them back their shade.
All this to prove we cared. Why is there then
No more to tell? We turned to other things.
I haven't any memory--have you? --
Of ever coming to the place again
To see if the birds lived the first night through,
And so at last to learn to use their wings.




"OUT, OUT--"


The buzz-saw snarled and rattled in the yard
And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood,
Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it.
And from there those that lifted eyes could count
Five mountain ranges one behind the other
Under the sunset far into Vermont.
And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled,
As it ran light, or had to bear a load.
And nothing happened: day was all but done.
Call it a day, I wish they might have said
To please the boy by giving him the half hour
That a boy counts so much when saved from work.
His sister stood beside them in her apron
To tell them "Supper. " At the word, the saw,
As if to prove saws knew what supper meant,
Leaped out at the boy's hand, or seemed to leap--
He must have given the hand. However it was,
Neither refused the meeting. But the hand!
The boy's first outcry was a rueful laugh,
As he swung toward them holding up the hand
Half in appeal, but half as if to keep
The life from spilling. Then the boy saw all--
Since he was old enough to know, big boy
Doing a man's work, though a child at heart--
He saw all spoiled. "Don't let him cut my hand off--
The doctor, when he comes. Don't let him, sister! "
So. But the hand was gone already.
The doctor put him in the dark of ether.
He lay and puffed his lips out with his breath.
And then--the watcher at his pulse took fright.
No one believed. They listened at his heart.
Little--less--nothing! --and that ended it.
No more to build on there. And they, since they
Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.




BROWN'S DESCENT

OR

THE WILLY-NILLY SLIDE


Brown lived at such a lofty farm
That everyone for miles could see
His lantern when he did his chores
In winter after half-past three.

And many must have seen him make
His wild descent from there one night,
'Cross lots, 'cross walls, 'cross everything,
Describing rings of lantern light.

Between the house and barn the gale
Got him by something he had on
And blew him out on the icy crust
That cased the world, and he was gone!

Walls were all buried, trees were few:
He saw no stay unless he stove
A hole in somewhere with his heel.
But though repeatedly he strove

And stamped and said things to himself,
And sometimes something seemed to yield,
He gained no foothold, but pursued
His journey down from field to field.

Sometimes he came with arms outspread
Like wings, revolving in the scene
Upon his longer axis, and
With no small dignity of mien.

Faster or slower as he chanced,
Sitting or standing as he chose,
According as he feared to risk
His neck, or thought to spare his clothes,

He never let the lantern drop.
And some exclaimed who saw afar
The figures he described with it,
"I wonder what those signals are

Brown makes at such an hour of night!
He's celebrating something strange.
I wonder if he's sold his farm,
Or been made Master of the Grange. "

He reeled, he lurched, he bobbed, he checked;
He fell and made the lantern rattle
(But saved the light from going out. )
So half-way down he fought the battle

Incredulous of his own bad luck.
And then becoming reconciled
To everything, he gave it up
And came down like a coasting child.

"Well--I--be--" that was all he said,
As standing in the river road,
He looked back up the slippery slope
(Two miles it was) to his abode.

Sometimes as an authority
On motor-cars, I'm asked if I
Should say our stock was petered out,
And this is my sincere reply:

Yankees are what they always were.
Don't think Brown ever gave up hope
Of getting home again because
He couldn't climb that slippery slope;

Or even thought of standing there
Until the January thaw
Should take the polish off the crust.
He bowed with grace to natural law,

And then went round it on his feet,
After the manner of our stock;
Not much concerned for those to whom,
At that particular time o'clock,

It must have looked as if the course
He steered was really straight away
From that which he was headed for--
Not much concerned for them, I say;

No more so than became a man--
_And_ politician at odd seasons.
I've kept Brown standing in the cold
While I invested him with reasons;

But now he snapped his eyes three times;
Then shook his lantern, saying, "Ile's
'Bout out! " and took the long way home
By road, a matter of several miles.




THE GUM-GATHERER


There overtook me and drew me in
To his down-hill, early-morning stride,
And set me five miles on my road
Better than if he had had me ride,
A man with a swinging bag for load
And half the bag wound round his hand.
We talked like barking above the din
Of water we walked along beside.
And for my telling him where I'd been
And where I lived in mountain land
To be coming home the way I was,
He told me a little about himself.
He came from higher up in the pass
Where the grist of the new-beginning brooks
Is blocks split off the mountain mass--
And hopeless grist enough it looks
Ever to grind to soil for grass.
(The way it is will do for moss. )
There he had built his stolen shack.
It had to be a stolen shack
Because of the fears of fire and loss
That trouble the sleep of lumber folk:
Visions of half the world burned black
And the sun shrunken yellow in smoke.
We know who when they come to town
Bring berries under the wagon seat,
Or a basket of eggs between their feet;
What this man brought in a cotton sack
Was gum, the gum of the mountain spruce.
He showed me lumps of the scented stuff
Like uncut jewels, dull and rough.
It comes to market golden brown;
But turns to pink between the teeth.

I told him this is a pleasant life
To set your breast to the bark of trees
That all your days are dim beneath,
And reaching up with a little knife,
To loose the resin and take it down
And bring it to market when you please.




THE LINE-GANG


Here come the line-gang pioneering by.
They throw a forest down less cut than broken.
They plant dead trees for living, and the dead
They string together with a living thread.
They string an instrument against the sky
Wherein words whether beaten out or spoken
Will run as hushed as when they were a thought.
But in no hush they string it: they go past
With shouts afar to pull the cable taut,
To hold it hard until they make it fast,
To ease away--they have it. With a laugh,
An oath of towns that set the wild at naught
They bring the telephone and telegraph.




THE VANISHING RED


He is said to have been the last Red Man
In Acton. And the Miller is said to have laughed--
If you like to call such a sound a laugh.
But he gave no one else a laugher's license.
For he turned suddenly grave as if to say,
"Whose business,--if I take it on myself,
Whose business--but why talk round the barn? --
When it's just that I hold with getting a thing done with. "
You can't get back and see it as he saw it.
It's too long a story to go into now.
You'd have to have been there and lived it.
Then you wouldn't have looked on it as just a matter
Of who began it between the two races.

Some guttural exclamation of surprise
The Red Man gave in poking about the mill
Over the great big thumping shuffling mill-stone
Disgusted the Miller physically as coming
From one who had no right to be heard from.
"Come, John," he said, "you want to see the wheel pit? "

He took him down below a cramping rafter,
And showed him, through a manhole in the floor,
The water in desperate straits like frantic fish,
Salmon and sturgeon, lashing with their tails.
Then he shut down the trap door with a ring in it
That jangled even above the general noise,
And came up stairs alone--and gave that laugh,
And said something to a man with a meal-sack
That the man with the meal-sack didn't catch--then.
Oh, yes, he showed John the wheel pit all right.




SNOW


The three stood listening to a fresh access
Of wind that caught against the house a moment,
Gulped snow, and then blew free again--the Coles
Dressed, but dishevelled from some hours of sleep,
Meserve belittled in the great skin coat he wore.

Meserve was first to speak. He pointed backward
Over his shoulder with his pipe-stem, saying,
"You can just see it glancing off the roof
Making a great scroll upward toward the sky,
Long enough for recording all our names on. --
I think I'll just call up my wife and tell her
I'm here--so far--and starting on again.
I'll call her softly so that if she's wise
And gone to sleep, she needn't wake to answer. "
Three times he barely stirred the bell, then listened.
"Why, Lett, still up? Lett, I'm at Cole's. I'm late.
I called you up to say Good-night from here
Before I went to say Good-morning there. --
I thought I would. --I know, but, Lett--I know--
I could, but what's the sense? The rest won't be
So bad. --Give me an hour for it. --Ho, ho,
Three hours to here! But that was all up hill;
The rest is down. --Why no, no, not a wallow:
They kept their heads and took their time to it
Like darlings, both of them. They're in the barn. --
My dear, I'm coming just the same. I didn't
Call you to ask you to invite me home. --"
He lingered for some word she wouldn't say,
Said it at last himself, "Good-night," and then,
Getting no answer, closed the telephone.
The three stood in the lamplight round the table
With lowered eyes a moment till he said,
"I'll just see how the horses are. "

"Yes, do,"
Both the Coles said together. Mrs. Cole
Added: "You can judge better after seeing. --
I want you here with me, Fred. Leave him here,
Brother Meserve. You know to find your way
Out through the shed. "

"I guess I know my way,
I guess I know where I can find my name
Carved in the shed to tell me who I am
If it don't tell me where I am. I used
To play--"

"You tend your horses and come back.
Fred Cole, you're going to let him! "

"Well, aren't you?
How can you help yourself? "

"I called him Brother.
Why did I call him that? "

"It's right enough.
That's all you ever heard him called round here.
He seems to have lost off his Christian name. "

"Christian enough I should call that myself.
He took no notice, did he? Well, at least
I didn't use it out of love of him,
The dear knows. I detest the thought of him
With his ten children under ten years old.
I hate his wretched little Racker Sect,
All's ever I heard of it, which isn't much.
But that's not saying--Look, Fred Cole, it's twelve,
Isn't it, now? He's been here half an hour.
He says he left the village store at nine.
Three hours to do four miles--a mile an hour
Or not much better. Why, it doesn't seem
As if a man could move that slow and move.
Try to think what he did with all that time.
And three miles more to go! "

"Don't let him go.
Stick to him, Helen. Make him answer you.
That sort of man talks straight on all his life
From the last thing he said himself, stone deaf
To anything anyone else may say.
I should have thought, though, you could make him hear you. "

"What is he doing out a night like this?
Why can't he stay at home? "

"He had to preach. "

"It's no night to be out. "

"He may be small,
He may be good, but one thing's sure, he's tough. "

"And strong of stale tobacco. "

"He'll pull through. "

"You only say so. Not another house
Or shelter to put into from this place
To theirs. I'm going to call his wife again. "

"Wait and he may. Let's see what he will do.
Let's see if he will think of her again.
But then I doubt he's thinking of himself
He doesn't look on it as anything. "

"He shan't go--there! "

"It _is_ a night, my dear. "

"One thing: he didn't drag God into it. "

"He don't consider it a case for God. "

"You think so, do you? You don't know the kind.
He's getting up a miracle this minute.
Privately--to himself, right now, he's thinking
He'll make a case of it if he succeeds,
But keep still if he fails. "

"Keep still all over.
He'll be dead--dead and buried. "

"Such a trouble!
Not but I've every reason not to care
What happens to him if it only takes
Some of the sanctimonious conceit
Out of one of those pious scalawags. "

"Nonsense to that! You want to see him safe. "

"You like the runt. "

"Don't you a little? "

"Well,
I don't like what he's doing, which is what
You like, and like him for. "

"Oh, yes you do.
You like your fun as well as anyone;
Only you women have to put these airs on
To impress men. You've got us so ashamed
Of being men we can't look at a good fight
Between two boys and not feel bound to stop it.
Let the man freeze an ear or two, I say. --
He's here. I leave him all to you. Go in
And save his life. --All right, come in, Meserve.
Sit down, sit down. How did you find the horses? "

"Fine, fine. "

"And ready for some more? My wife here
Says it won't do. You've got to give it up. "

"Won't you to please me? Please! If I say please?
Mr. Meserve, I'll leave it to _your_ wife.
What _did_ your wife say on the telephone? "

Meserve seemed to heed nothing but the lamp
Or something not far from it on the table.
By straightening out and lifting a forefinger,
He pointed with his hand from where it lay
Like a white crumpled spider on his knee:
"That leaf there in your open book! It moved
Just then, I thought. It's stood erect like that,
There on the table, ever since I came,
Trying to turn itself backward or forward,
I've had my eye on it to make out which;
If forward, then it's with a friend's impatience--
You see I know--to get you on to things
It wants to see how you will take, if backward
It's from regret for something you have passed
And failed to see the good of. Never mind,
Things must expect to come in front of us
A many times--I don't say just how many--
That varies with the things--before we see them.
One of the lies would make it out that nothing
Ever presents itself before us twice.
Where would we be at last if that were so?
Our very life depends on everything's
Recurring till we answer from within.
The thousandth time may prove the charm. --That leaf!
It can't turn either way. It needs the wind's help.
But the wind didn't move it if it moved.
It moved itself. The wind's at naught in here.
It couldn't stir so sensitively poised
A thing as that. It couldn't reach the lamp
To get a puff of black smoke from the flame,
Or blow a rumple in the collie's coat.
You make a little foursquare block of air,
Quiet and light and warm, in spite of all
The illimitable dark and cold and storm,
And by so doing give these three, lamp, dog,
And book-leaf, that keep near you, their repose;
Though for all anyone can tell, repose
May be the thing you haven't, yet you give it.
So false it is that what we haven't we can't give;
So false, that what we always say is true.
I'll have to turn the leaf if no one else will.
It won't lie down. Then let it stand. Who cares? "

"I shouldn't want to hurry you, Meserve,
But if you're going--Say you'll stay, you know?
But let me raise this curtain on a scene,
And show you how it's piling up against you.
You see the snow-white through the white of frost?
Ask Helen how far up the sash it's climbed
Since last we read the gage. "

"It looks as if
Some pallid thing had squashed its features flat
And its eyes shut with overeagerness
To see what people found so interesting
In one another, and had gone to sleep
Of its own stupid lack of understanding,
Or broken its white neck of mushroom stuff
Short off, and died against the window-pane. "

"Brother Meserve, take care, you'll scare yourself
More than you will us with such nightmare talk.
It's you it matters to, because it's you
Who have to go out into it alone. "

"Let him talk, Helen, and perhaps he'll stay. "

"Before you drop the curtain--I'm reminded:
You recollect the boy who came out here
To breathe the air one winter--had a room
Down at the Averys'? Well, one sunny morning
After a downy storm, he passed our place
And found me banking up the house with snow.
And I was burrowing in deep for warmth,
Piling it well above the window-sills.
The snow against the window caught his eye.
'Hey, that's a pretty thought'--those were his words.
'So you can think it's six feet deep outside,
While you sit warm and read up balanced rations.
You can't get too much winter in the winter. '
Those were his words. And he went home and all
But banked the daylight out of Avery's windows.
Now you and I would go to no such length.
At the same time you can't deny it makes
It not a mite worse, sitting here, we three,
Playing our fancy, to have the snowline run
So high across the pane outside. There where
There is a sort of tunnel in the frost
More like a tunnel than a hole--way down
At the far end of it you see a stir
And quiver like the frayed edge of the drift
Blown in the wind. I _like_ that--I like _that_.
Well, now I leave you, people. "

"Come, Meserve,
We thought you were deciding not to go--
The ways you found to say the praise of comfort
And being where you are. You want to stay. "

"I'll own it's cold for such a fall of snow.
This house is frozen brittle, all except
This room you sit in. If you think the wind
Sounds further off, it's not because it's dying;
You're further under in the snow--that's all--
And feel it less. Hear the soft bombs of dust
It bursts against us at the chimney mouth,
And at the eaves. I like it from inside
More than I shall out in it. But the horses
Are rested and it's time to say good-night,
And let you get to bed again. Good-night,
Sorry I had to break in on your sleep. "

"Lucky for you you did. Lucky for you
You had us for a half-way station
To stop at. If you were the kind of man
Paid heed to women, you'd take my advice
And for your family's sake stay where you are.
But what good is my saying it over and over?
You've done more than you had a right to think
You could do--_now_. You know the risk you take
In going on. "

"Our snow-storms as a rule
Aren't looked on as man-killers, and although
I'd rather be the beast that sleeps the sleep
Under it all, his door sealed up and lost,
Than the man fighting it to keep above it,
Yet think of the small birds at roost and not
In nests. Shall I be counted less than they are?
Their bulk in water would be frozen rock
In no time out to-night. And yet to-morrow
They will come budding boughs from tree to tree
Flirting their wings and saying Chickadee,
As if not knowing what you meant by the word storm. "

"But why when no one wants you to go on?
Your wife--she doesn't want you to. We don't,
And you yourself don't want to. Who else is there? "

"Save us from being cornered by a woman.
Well, there's"--She told Fred afterward that in
The pause right there, she thought the dreaded word
Was coming, "God. " But no, he only said
"Well, there's--the storm. That says I must go on.
That wants me as a war might if it came.
Ask any man. "

He threw her that as something
To last her till he got outside the door.
He had Cole with him to the barn to see him off.
When Cole returned he found his wife still standing
Beside the table near the open book,
Not reading it.

"Well, what kind of a man
Do you call that? " she said.

"He had the gift
Of words, or is it tongues, I ought to say? "

"Was ever such a man for seeing likeness? "

"Or disregarding people's civil questions--
What? We've found out in one hour more about him
Than we had seeing him pass by in the road
A thousand times. If that's the way he preaches!
You didn't think you'd keep him after all.
Oh, I'm not blaming you. He didn't leave you
Much say in the matter, and I'm just as glad
We're not in for a night of him. No sleep
If he had stayed. The least thing set him going.
It's quiet as an empty church without him. "

"But how much better off are we as it is?
We'll have to sit here till we know he's safe. "

"Yes, I suppose you'll want to, but I shouldn't.
He knows what he can do, or he wouldn't try.
Get into bed I say, and get some rest.
He won't come back, and if he telephones,
It won't be for an hour or two. "

"Well then.
We can't be any help by sitting here
And living his fight through with him, I suppose. "

* * * * *

Cole had been telephoning in the dark.
Mrs. Cole's voice came from an inner room:
"Did she call you or you call her? "

"She me.
You'd better dress: you won't go back to bed.
We must have been asleep: it's three and after. "

"Had she been ringing long? I'll get my wrapper.
I want to speak to her. "

"All she said was,
He hadn't come and had he really started. "

"She knew he had, poor thing, two hours ago. "

"He had the shovel. He'll have made a fight. "

"Why did I ever let him leave this house! "

"Don't begin that. You did the best you could
To keep him--though perhaps you didn't quite
Conceal a wish to see him show the spunk
To disobey you. Much his wife'll thank you. "

"Fred, after all I said! You shan't make out
That it was any way but what it was.
Did she let on by any word she said
She didn't thank me? "

"When I told her 'Gone,'
'Well then,' she said, and 'Well then'--like a threat.
And then her voice came scraping slow: 'Oh, you,
Why did you let him go'? "

"Asked why we let him?
You let me there. I'll ask her why she let him.
She didn't dare to speak when he was here.
Their number's--twenty-one? The thing won't work.
Someone's receiver's down. The handle stumbles.
The stubborn thing, the way it jars your arm!
It's theirs. She's dropped it from her hand and gone. "

"Try speaking. Say 'Hello'! "

"Hello. Hello. "

"What do you hear? "

"I hear an empty room--
You know--it sounds that way. And yes, I hear--
I think I hear a clock--and windows rattling.
No step though. If she's there she's sitting down. "

"Shout, she may hear you. "

"Shouting is no good. "

"Keep speaking then. "

"Hello. Hello. Hello.
You don't suppose--? She wouldn't go out doors? "

"I'm half afraid that's just what she might do. "

"And leave the children? "

"Wait and call again.
You can't hear whether she has left the door
Wide open and the wind's blown out the lamp
And the fire's died and the room's dark and cold? "

"One of two things, either she's gone to bed
Or gone out doors. "

"In which case both are lost.
Do you know what she's like? Have you ever met her?
It's strange she doesn't want to speak to us. "

"Fred, see if you can hear what I hear. Come. "

"A clock maybe. "

"Don't you hear something else? "

"Not talking. "

"No. "

"Why, yes, I hear--what is it? "

"What do you say it is? "

"A baby's crying!
Frantic it sounds, though muffled and far off. "

"Its mother wouldn't let it cry like that,
Not if she's there. "

"What do you make of it? "

"There's only one thing possible to make,
That is, assuming--that she has gone out.
Of course she hasn't though. " They both sat down
Helpless. "There's nothing we can do till morning. "

"Fred, I shan't let you think of going out. "

"Hold on. " The double bell began to chirp.
They started up. Fred took the telephone.
"Hello, Meserve. You're there, then! --And your wife?
Good! Why I asked--she didn't seem to answer.
He says she went to let him in the barn. --
We're glad. Oh, say no more about it, man.
Drop in and see us when you're passing. "

"Well,
She has him then, though what she wants him for
I _don't_ see. "

"Possibly not for herself.
Maybe she only wants him for the children. "

"The whole to-do seems to have been for nothing.
What spoiled our night was to him just his fun.
What did he come in for? --To talk and visit?
Thought he'd just call to tell us it was snowing.
If he thinks he is going to make our house
A halfway coffee house 'twixt town and nowhere----"

"I thought you'd feel you'd been too much concerned. "

"You think you haven't been concerned yourself. "

"If you mean he was inconsiderate
To rout us out to think for him at midnight
And then take our advice no more than nothing,
Why, I agree with you. But let's forgive him.
We've had a share in one night of his life.
What'll you bet he ever calls again? "




_THE SOUND OF THE TREES_


_I wonder about the trees.
Why do we wish to bear
Forever the noise of these
More than another noise
So close to our dwelling place?
We suffer them by the day
Till we lose all measure of pace,
And fixity in our joys,
And acquire a listening air.
They are that that talks of going
But never gets away;
And that talks no less for knowing,
As it grows wiser and older,
That now it means to stay.
My feet tug at the floor
And my head sways to my shoulder
Sometimes when I watch trees sway,
From the window or the door.
I shall set forth for somewhere,
I shall make the reckless choice
Some day when they are in voice
And tossing so as to scare
The white clouds over them on.
I shall have less to say,
But I shall be gone.