Selected Poems
"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. Hell 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?"
IN THE HOME STRETCH
She stood against the kitchen sink, and looked
Over the sink out through a dusty window
At weeds the water from the sink made tall.
She wore her cape; her hat was in her hand.
Behind her was confusion in the room,
Of chairs turned upside down to sit like people
In other chairs, and something, come to look,
For every room a house has—-parlor, bed-room,
And dining-room—-thrown pell-mell in the kitchen.
And now and then a smudged, infernal face
Looked in a door behind her and addressed
Her back. She always answered without turning.
"Where will I put this walnut bureau, lady?"
"Put it on top of something that's on top
Of something else," she laughed. "Oh, put it where
You can to-night, and go. It's almost dark;
You must be getting started back to town."
Another blackened face thrust in and looked
And smiled, and when she did not turn, spoke
gently,
"What are you seeing out the window, _lady?_"
"Never was I beladied so before.
Would evidence of having been called lady
More than so many times make me a lady
In common law, I wonder."
"But I ask,
What are you seeing out the window, lady?"
"What I'll be seeing more of in the years
To come as here I stand and go the round
Of many plates with towels many times."
"And what is that? You only put me off."
"Rank weeds that love the water from the dish-pan
More than some women like the dish-pan, Joe;
A little stretch of mowing-field for you;
Not much of that until I come to woods
That end all. And it's scarce enough to call
A view."
"And yet you think you like it, dear?"
"That's what you're so concerned to know! You
hope
I like it. Bang goes something big away
Off there upstairs. The very tread of men
As great as those is shattering to the frame
Of such a little house. Once left alone,
You and I, dear, will go with softer steps
Up and down stairs and through the rooms, and
none
But sudden winds that snatch them from our hands
Will ever slam the doors."
"I think you see
More than you like to own to out that window."
"No; for besides the things I tell you of,
I only see the years. They come and go
In alternation with the weeds, the field,
The wood."
"What kind of years?"
"Why, latter years—-
Different from early years."
"I see them, too.
You didn't count them?"
"No, the further off
So ran together that I didn't try to.
It can scarce be that they would be in number
We'd care to know, for we are not young now.
And bang goes something else away off there.
It sounds as if it were the men went down,
And every crash meant one less to return
To lighted city streets we, too, have known,
But now are giving up for country darkness."
"Come from that window where you see too much
for me,
And take a livelier view of things from here.
They're going. Watch this husky swarming up
Over the wheel into the sky-high seat,
Lighting his pipe now, squinting down his nose
At the flame burning downward as he sucks it."
"See how it makes his nose-side bright, a proof
How dark it's getting. Can you tell what time
It is by that? Or by the moon? The new moon!
What shoulder did I see her over? Neither.
A wire she is of silver, as new as we
To everything. Her light won't last us long.
It's something, though, to know we're going to
have her
Night after night and stronger every night
To see us through our first two weeks. But, Joe,
The stove! Before they go! Knock on the window;
Ask them to help you get it on its feet.
We stand here dreaming. Hurry! Call them back!"
"They're not gone yet."
"We've got to have the stove,
Whatever else we want for. And a light.
Have we a piece of candle if the lamp
And oil are buried out of reach?"
Again
The house was full of tramping, and the dark,
Door-filling men burst in and seized the stove.
A cannon-mouth-like hole was in the wall,
To which they set it true by eye; and then
Came up the jointed stovepipe in their hands,
So much too light and airy for their strength
It almost seemed to come ballooning up,
Slipping from clumsy clutches toward the ceiling.
"A fit!" said one, and banged a stovepipe shoulder.
"It's good luck when you move in to begin
With good luck with your stovepipe. Never mind,
It's not so bad in the country, settled down,
When people 're getting on in life. You'll like it."
Joe said: "You big boys ought to find a farm,
And make good farmers, and leave other fellows
The city work to do. There's not enough
For everybody as it is in there."
"God!" one said wildly, and, when no one spoke:
"Say that to Jimmy here. He needs a farm."
But Jimmy only made his jaw recede
Fool-like, and rolled his eyes as if to say
He saw himself a farmer. Then there was a French
boy
Who said with seriousness that made them laugh,
"Ma friend, you ain't know what it is you're ask."
He doffed his cap and held it with both hands
Across his chest to make as 'twere a bow:
"We're giving you our chances on de farm."
And then they all turned to with deafening boots
And put each other bodily out of the house.
"Goodby to them! We puzzle them. They think—-
I don't know what they think we see in what
They leave us to: that pasture slope that seems
The back some farm presents us; and your woods
To northward from your window at the sink,
Waiting to steal a step on us whenever
We drop our eyes or turn to other things,
As in the game 'Ten-step' the children play."
"Good boys they seemed, and let them love the city.
All they could say was 'God!' when you proposed
Their coming out and making useful farmers."
"Did they make something lonesome go through
you?
It would take more than them to sicken you—-
Us of our bargain. But they left us so
As to our fate, like fools past reasoning with.
They almost shook _me._"
"It's all so much
What we have always wanted, I confess
It's seeming bad for a moment makes it seem
Even worse still, and so on down, down, down.
It's nothing; it's their leaving us at dusk.
I never bore it well when people went.
The first night after guests have gone, the house
Seems haunted or exposed. I always take
A personal interest in the locking up
At bedtime; but the strangeness soon wears off."
He fetched a dingy lantern from behind
A door. "There's that we didn't lose! And these!"
Some matches he unpocketed. "For food—-
The meals we've had no one can take from us.
I wish that everything on earth were just
As certain as the meals we've had. I wish
The meals we haven't had were, anyway.
What have you you know where to lay your hands
on?"
"The bread we bought in passing at the store.
There's butter somewhere, too."
"Let's rend the bread.
I'll light the fire for company for you;
You'll not have any other company
Till Ed begins to get out on a Sunday
To look us over and give us his idea
Of what wants pruning, shingling, breaking up.
He'll know what he would do if he were we,
And all at once. He'll plan for us and plan
To help us, but he'll take it out in planning.
Well, you can set the table with the loaf.
Let's see you find your loaf. I'll light the fire.
I like chairs occupying other chairs
Not offering a lady—-"
"There again, Joe!
_You're tired._"
"I'm drunk-nonsensical tired out;
Don't mind a word I say. It's a day's work
To empty one house of all household goods
And fill another with 'em fifteen miles away,
Although you do no more than dump them down."
"Dumped down in paradise we are and happy."
"It's all so much what I have always wanted,
I can't believe it's what you wanted, too."