All that day he traveled, laying his course by the rounding sun. The forest seemed interminable; nowhere did he discover a break in it, not even a woodman’s road. He had not known that he lived in so wild a region. There was something uncanny in the revelation.
By nightfall he was fatigued, footsore, famishing. The thought of his wife and children urged him on. At last he found a road which led him in what he knew to be the right direction. It was as wide and straight as a city street, yet it seemed untraveled. No fields bordered it, no dwelling anywhere. Not so much as the barking of a dog suggested human habitation. The black bodies of the great trees formed a straight wall on both sides, terminating on the horizon in a point, like a diagram in a lesson in perspective. Overhead, as he looked up through this rift in the wood, shone great golden stars looking unfamiliar and grouped in strange constellations. He was sure they were arranged in some order which had a secret and malign significance. The wood on either side was full of singular noises, among which—once, twice, and again—he distinctly heard whispers in an unknown tongue.
His neck was in pain, and, lifting his hand to it, he found it horribly swollen. He knew that it had a circle of black where the rope had bruised it. His eyes felt congested; he could no longer close them. His tongue was swollen with thirst; he relieved its fever by thrusting it forward from between his teeth into the cool air. How softly the turf had carpeted the untraveled avenue! He could no longer feel the roadway beneath his feet!
Doubtless, despite his suffering, he fell asleep while walking, for now he sees another scene—perhaps he has merely recovered from a delirium. He stands at the gate of his own home. All is as he left it, and all bright and beautiful in the morning sunshine. He must have traveled the entire night. As he pushes open the gate and passes up the wide white walk, he sees a flutter of female garments; his wife, looking fresh and cool and sweet, steps down from the veranda to meet him. At the bottom of the steps she stands waiting, with a smile of ineffable joy, an attitude of matchless grace and dignity. Ah, how beautiful she is! He springs forward with extended arms. As he is about to clasp her, he feels a stunning blow upon the back of the neck; a blinding white light blazes all about him, with a sound like the shock of a cannon—then all is darkness and silence!
Peyton Farquhar was dead; his body, with a broken neck, swung gently from side to side beneath the timbers of the Owl Creek bridge.
SOURCE: Ambrose Bierce. Tales of Soldiers and Civilians. New York: Lovell, Coryell and Company, 1891.
MARY E. WILKINS FREEMAN
Mary E. Wilkins Freeman (1852–1930) was a popular author for several decades. In this tight-knit drama of domestic relations, Freeman presents the extraordinary Sarah Penn, who informs an interfering minister, “There ain’t no use talkin’, Mr. Hersey. . . . I’ve thought it all over an’ over, an’ I believe I’m doin’ what’s right. I’ve made it the subject of prayer, an’ it’s betwixt me an’ the Lord an’ Adoniram. There ain’t no call for nobody else to worry about it.”
The Revolt of “Mother” (1891)
“FATHER!”
“What is it?”
“What are them men diggin’ over there in the field for?”
There was a sudden dropping and enlarging of the lower part of the old man’s face, as if some heavy weight had settled therein; he shut his mouth tight, and went on harnessing the great bay mare. He hustled the collar on to her neck with a jerk.
“Father!”
The old man slapped the saddle upon the mare’s back.
“Look here, father, I want to know what them men are diggin’ over in the field for, an’ I’m goin’ to know.”
“I wish you’d go into the house, mother, an’ ’tend to your own affairs,” the old man said then. He ran his words together, and his speech was almost as inarticulate as a growl.
But the woman understood; it was her most native tongue. “I ain’t goin’ into the house till you tell me what them men are doin’ over there in the field,” said she.
Then she stood waiting. She was a small woman, short and straight-waisted like a child in her brown cotton gown. Her forehead was mild and benevolent between the smooth curves of gray hair; there were meek downward lines about her nose and mouth; but her eyes, fixed upon the old man, looked as if the meekness had been the result of her own will, never of the will of another.
They were in the barn, standing before the wide-open doors. The spring air, full of the smell of growing grass and unseen blossoms, came in their faces. The deep yard in front was littered with farm-wagons and piles of wood; on the edges, close to the fence and the house, the grass was a vivid green, and there were some dandelions.
The old man glanced doggedly at his wife as he tightened the last buckles on the harness. She looked as immovable to him as one of the rocks in his pasture-land, bound to the earth with generations of blackberry vines. He slapped the reins over the horse, and started forth from the barn.
“Father!” said she.
The old man pulled up. “What is it?”
“I want to know what them men are diggin’ over there in that field for.”
“They’re diggin’ a cellar, I s’pose, if you’ve got to know.”
“A cellar for what?”
“A barn.”
“A barn? You ain’t goin’ to build a barn over there where we was goin’ to have a house, father?”
The old man said not another word. He hurried the horse into the farm wagon, and clattered out of the yard, jouncing as sturdily on his seat as a boy.
The woman stood a moment looking after him, then she went out of the barn across a corner of the yard to the house. The house, standing at right angles with the great barn and a long reach of sheds and out-buildings, was infinitesimal compared with them. It was scarcely as commodious for people as the little boxes under the barn eaves were for doves.
A pretty girl’s face, pink and delicate as a flower, was looking out of one of the house windows. She was watching three men who were digging over in the field which bounded the yard near the road line. She turned quietly when the woman entered.
“What are they digging for, mother?” said she. “Did he tell you?”
“They’re diggin’ for—a cellar for a new barn.”
“Oh, mother, he ain’t going to build another barn?”
“That’s what he says.”
A boy stood before the kitchen glass combing his hair. He combed slowly and painstakingly, arranging his brown hair in a smooth hillock over his forehead. He did not seem to pay any attention to the conversation.
“Sammy, did you know father was going to build a new barn?” asked the girl.
The boy combed assiduously.
“Sammy!”
He turned, and showed a face like his father’s under his smooth crest of hair. “Yes, I s’pose I did,” he said, reluctantly.
“How long have you known it?” asked his mother.
“ ’Bout three months, I guess.”
“Why didn’t you tell of it?”
“Didn’t think ’twould do no good.”
“I don’t see what father wants another barn for,” said the girl, in her sweet, slow voice. She turned again to the window, and stared out at the digging men in the field. Her tender, sweet face was full of a gentle distress. Her forehead was as bald and innocent as a baby’s, with the light hair strained back from it in a row of curl-papers. She was quite large, but her soft curves did not look as if they covered muscles.
Her mother looked sternly at the boy. “Is he goin’ to buy more cows?” said she.
The boy did not reply; he was tying his shoes.
“Sammy, I want you to tell me if he’s goin’ to buy more cows.”
“I s’pose he is.”
“How many?”
“Four, I guess.”
His mother said nothing more. She went into the pantry and there was a clatter of dishes. The boy got his cap from a nail behind the door, took an old arithmetic from the shelf, and start
ed for school. He was lightly built, but clumsy. He went out of the yard with a curious spring in the hips, that made his loose home-made jacket tilt up in the rear.
The girl went to the sink, and began to wash the dishes that were piled up there. Her mother came promptly out of the pantry, and shoved her aside. “You wipe ’em,” said she; “I’ll wash. There’s a good many this mornin’.”
The mother plunged her hands vigorously into the water, the girl wiped the plates slowly and dreamily. “Mother,” said she, “don’t you think it’s too bad father’s going to build that new barn, much as we need a decent house to live in?”
Her mother scrubbed a dish fiercely. “You ain’t found out yet we’re women-folks, Nanny Penn,” said she. “You ain’t seen enough of men-folks yet to. One of these days you’ll find it out, an’ then you’ll know that we know only what men-folks think we do, so far as any use of it goes, an’ how we’d ought to reckon men-folks in with Providence an’ not complain of what they do any more than we do of the weather.”
“I don’t care; I don’t believe George is anything like that, anyhow,” said Nanny. Her delicate face flushed pink, her lips pouted softly, as if she were going to cry.
“You wait an’ see. I guess George Eastman ain’t no better than other men. You hadn’t ought to judge father, though. He can’t help it, ’cause he don’t look at things jest the way we do. An’ we’ve been pretty comfortable here, after all. The roof don’t leak—ain’t never but once—that’s one thing. Father’s kept it shingled right up.”
“I do wish we had a parlor.”
“I guess it won’t hurt George Eastman any to come to see you in a nice clean kitchen. I guess a good many girls don’t have as good a place as this. Nobody’s ever heard me complain.”
“I ain’t complained either, mother.”
“Well, I don’t think you’d better, a good father an’ a good home as you’ve got. S’pose your father made you go out an’ work for your livin’? Lots of girls have to that ain’t no stronger an’ better able to than you be.”
Sarah Penn washed the frying-pan with a conclusive air. She scrubbed the outside of it as faithfully as the inside. She was a masterly keeper of her box of a house. Her one living-room never seemed to have in it any of the dust which the friction of life with inanimate matter produces. She swept, and there seemed to be no dirt to go before the broom; she cleaned, and one could see no difference. She was like an artist so perfect that he has apparently no art. To-day she got out a mixing bowl and a board, and rolled some pies, and there was no more flour upon her than upon her daughter who was doing finer work. Nanny was to be married in the fall, and she was sewing on some white cambric and embroidery. She sewed industriously while her mother cooked, her soft milk-white hands and wrists showed whiter than her delicate work.
“We must have the stove moved out in the shed before long,” said Mrs. Penn. “Talk about not havin’ things, it’s been a real blessin’ to be able to put a stove up in that shed in hot weather. Father did one good thing when he fixed that stove-pipe out there.”
Sarah Penn’s face as she rolled her pies had that expression of meek vigor which might have characterized one of the New Testament saints. She was making mince-pies. Her husband, Adoniram Penn, liked them better than any other kind. She baked twice a week. Adoniram often liked a piece of pie between meals. She hurried this morning. It had been later than usual when she began, and she wanted to have a pie baked for dinner. However deep a resentment she might be forced to hold against her husband, she would never fail in sedulous attention to his wants.
Nobility of character manifests itself at loop-holes when it is not provided with large doors. Sarah Penn’s showed itself to-day in flaky dishes of pastry. So she made the pies faithfully, while across the table she could see, when she glanced up from her work, the sight that rankled in her patient and steadfast soul—the digging of the cellar of the new barn in the place where Adoniram forty years ago had promised her their new house should stand.
The pies were done for dinner. Adoniram and Sammy were home a few minutes after twelve o’clock. The dinner was eaten with serious haste. There was never much conversation at the table in the Penn family. Adoniram asked a blessing, and they ate promptly, then rose up and went about their work.
Sammy went back to school, taking soft sly lopes out of the yard like a rabbit. He wanted a game of marbles before school, and feared his father would give him some chores to do. Adoniram hastened to the door and called after him, but he was out of sight.
“I don’t see what you let him go for, mother,” said he. “I wanted him to help me unload that wood.”
Adoniram went to work out in the yard unloading wood from the wagon. Sarah put away the dinner dishes, while Nanny took down her curl-papers and changed her dress. She was going down to the store to buy some more embroidery and thread.
When Nanny was gone, Mrs. Penn went to the door. “Father!” she called.
“Well, what is it?”
“I want to see you jest a minute, father.”
“I can’t leave this wood nohow. I’ve got to git it unloaded an’ go for a load of gravel afore two o’clock. Sammy had ought to helped me. You hadn’t ought to let him go to school so early.”
“I want to see you jest a minute.”
“I tell ye I can’t, nohow, mother.”
“Father, you come here.” Sarah Penn stood in the door like a queen; she held her head as if it bore a crown; there was that patience which makes authority royal in her voice. Adoniram went.
Mrs. Penn led the way into the kitchen, and pointed to a chair. “Sit down, father,” said she; “I’ve got somethin’ I want to say to you.”
He sat down heavily; his face was quite stolid, but he looked at her with restive eyes. “Well, what is it, mother?”
“I want to know what you’re buildin’ that new barn for, father?”
“I ain’t got nothin’ to say about it.”
“It can’t be you think you need another barn?”
“I tell ye I ain’t got nothin’ to say about it, mother; an’ I ain’t goin’ to say nothin’.”
“Be you goin’ to buy more cows?”
Adoniram did not reply; he shut his mouth tight.
“I know you be, as well as I want to. Now, father, look here”—Sarah Penn had not sat down; she stood before her husband in the humble fashion of a Scripture woman—“I’m goin’ to talk real plain to you: I never have sence I married you, but I’m goin’ to now. I ain’t never complained, an’ I ain’t goin’ to complain now, but I’m goin’ to talk plain. You see this room here, father; you look at it well. You see there ain’t no carpet on the floor, an’ you see the paper is all dirty, an’ droppin’ off the walls. We ain’t had no new paper on it for ten year, an’ then I put it on myself an’ it didn’t cost but ninepence a roll. You see this room, father; it’s all the one I’ve had to work in an’ eat in an’ sit in sence we was married. There ain’t another woman in the whole town whose husband ain’t got half the means you have but what’s got better. It’s all the room Nanny’s got to have her company in; an’ there ain’t one of her mates but what’s got better, an’ their fathers not so able as hers is. It’s all the room she’ll have to be married in. What would you have thought, father, if we had had our weddin’ in a room no better than this? I was married in my mother’s parlor, with a carpet on the floor, an’ stuffed furniture, an’ a mahogany card-table. An’ this is all the room my daughter will have to be married in. Look here, father!”
Sarah Penn went across the room as though it were a tragic stage. She flung open a door and disclosed a tiny bedroom, only large enough for a bed and bureau, with a path between. “There, father,” said she—“there’s all the room I’ve had to sleep in forty year. All my children were born there—the two that died, an’ the two that’s livin’. I was sick with a fever there.”
She stepped to another door and opened it. It led into the small, ill-lighted pantry. “Here
,” said she, “is all the buttery I’ve got—every place I’ve got for my dishes, to set away my victuals in, an’ to keep my milk-pans in. Father, I’ve been takin’ care of the milk of six cows in this place, an’ now you’re goin’ to build a new barn, an’ keep more cows, an’ give me more to do in it.”
She threw open another door. A narrow crooked flight of stairs wound upward from it. “There, father,” said she; “I want you to look at the stairs that go up to them two unfinished chambers that are all the places our son an’ daughter have had to sleep in all their lives. There ain’t a prettier girl in town nor a more ladylike one than Nanny, an’ that’s the place she has to sleep in. It ain’t so good as your horse’s stall; it ain’t so warm an’ tight.”
Sarah Penn went back and stood before her husband. “Now, father,” said she, “I want to know if you think you’re doin’ right an’ accordin’ to what you profess. Here, when we was married, forty year ago, you promised me faithful that we should have a new house built in that lot over in the field before the year was out. You said you had money enough, an’ you wouldn’t ask me to live in no such place as this. It is forty year now, an’ you’ve been makin’ more money, an’ I’ve been savin’ of it for you ever since, an’ you ain’t built no house yet. You’ve built sheds an’ cow-houses an’ one new barn, an’ now you’re goin’ to build another. Father, I want to know if you think it’s right. You’re lodgin’ your dumb beasts better than you are your own flesh an’ blood. I want to know if you think it’s right.”
“I ain’t got nothin’ to say.”
“You can’t say nothin’ without ownin’ it ain’t right, father. An’ there’s another thing—I ain’t complained; I’ve got along forty year, an’ I s’pose I should forty more, if it wa’n’t for that—if we don’t have another house. Nanny she can’t live with us after she’s married. She’ll have to go somewheres else to live away from us, an’ it don’t seem as if I could have it so, noways, father. She wa’n’t ever strong. She’s got considerable color, but there wa’n’t ever any backbone to her. I’ve always took the heft of everything off her, an’ she ain’t fit to keep house an’ do everything herself. She’ll be all worn out inside of a year. Think of her doin’ all the washin’ an’ ironin’ an’ bakin’ with them soft white hands an’ arms, an’ sweepin’! I can’t have it so, noways, father.”
The Dover Anthology of American Literature Volume II Page 22
