章节正文
days the wind raised, whirling dead leaves before it, and
covering the earth with drifts of plum, cherry, and apple bloom,
like late falling snow. Then great black clouds came sweeping
across the sky, and massed above Rainbow Bottom. The lightning
flashed as if the heavens were being cracked open, and the
rolling thunder sent terror to the hearts of man and beast. When
the birds flew for shelter, Dannie and Jimmy unhitched their
horses, and raced for the stables to escape the storm, and to be
with Mary, whom electricity made nervous.
They would sit on the little front porch, and watch the greedy
earth drink the downpour. They could almost see the grass and
flowers grow. When the clouds scattered, the thunder grew
fainter; and the sun shone again between light sprinkles of rain.
Then a great, glittering rainbow set its arch in the sky, and it
planted one of its feet in Horseshoe Bend, and the other so far
away they could not even guess where.
If it rained lightly, in a little while Dannie and Jimmy could go
back to their work afield. If the downpour was heavy, and made
plowing impossible, they pulled weeds, and hoed in the garden.
Dannie discoursed on the wholesomefreshness of the earth, and
Jimmy ever waited a chance to twist his words, and ring in a
laugh on him. He usually found it. Sometimes, after a rain, they
took their bait cans, and rods, and went down to the river to
fish.
If one could not go, the other religiously refrained from casting
bait into the pool where the Black Bass lay. Once, when they were
fishing together, the Bass rose to a white moth, skittered over
the surface by Dannie late in the evening, and twice Jimmy had
strikes which he averred had taken the arm almost off him, but
neither really had the Bass on his hook. They kept to their own
land, and fished when they pleased, for game laws and wardens
were unknown to them.
Truth to tell, neither of them really hoped to get the Bass
before fall. The water was too high in the spring. Minnows were
plentiful, and as Jimmy said, "It seemed as if the domn plum tree
just rained caterpillars." So they bided their time, and the
signs prohibiting trespass on all sides of their land were many
and emphatic, and Mary had instructions to ring the dinner bell
if she caught sight of any strangers.
The days grew longer, and the sun was insistent. Untold miles
they trudged back and forth across their land, guiding their
horses, jerked about with plows, their feet weighted with the
damp, clinging earth, and their clothing pasted to their wet
bodies. Jimmy was growing restless. Never in all his life had he
worked so faithfully as that spring, and never had his visits to
Casey's so told on him. No matter where they started, or how hard
they worked, Dannie was across the middle of the field, and
helping Jimmy before the finish. It was always Dannie who plowed
on, while Jimmy rode to town for the missing bolt or buckle, and
he generally rolled from his horse into a fence corner, and
slept the remainder of the day on his return.
The work and heat were beginning to tire him, and his trips to
Casey's had been much less frequent than he desired. He grew to
feel that between them Dannie and Mary were driving him, and a
desire to balk at slight cause, gathered in his breast. He
deliberately tied his team in a fence corner, lay down, and fell
asleep. The clanging of the supper bell aroused him. He opened
his eyes, and as he rose, found that Dannie had been to the barn,
and brought a horse blanket to cover him. Well as he knew
anything, Jimmy knew that he had no business sleeping in fence
corners so early in the season. With candor he would have
admitted to himself that a part of his brittle temper came from
aching bones and rheumatic twinges. Some way, the sight of Dannie
swinging across the field, looking as fresh as in the early
morning, and the fact that he had carried a blanket to cover him,
and the further fact that he was wild for drink, and could think
of no excuse on earth for going to town, brought him to a
fighting crisis.
Dannie turned his horses at Jimmy's feet.
"Come on, Jimmy, supper bell has rung," he cried. "We mustn't
keep Mary waiting. She wants us to help her plant the sweet
potatoes to-nicht."
Jimmy rose, and his joints almost creaked. The pain angered him.
He leaned forward and glared at Dannie.
"Is there one minute of the day whin you ain't thinkin' about my
wife?" he demanded, oh, so slowly, and so ugly!
Dannie met his hateful gaze squarely. "Na a minute," he answered,
"excepting when I am thinking about ye."
"The Hell you say!" exploded the astonished Jimmy.
Dannie stepped out of the furrow, and came closer. "See here,
Jimmy Malone," he said. "Ye ain't forgot the nicht when I told ye
I loved Mary, with all my heart, and that I'd never love another
woman. I sent ye to tell her fra me, and to ask if I might come
to her. And ye brought me her answer. It's na your fault that she
preferred ye. Everybody did. But it IS your fault that I've
stayed on here. I tried to go, and ye wouldna let me. So for
fifteen years, ye have lain with the woman I love, and I have
lain alone in a few rods of ye. If that ain't Man-Hell, try some
other on me, and see if it will touch me! I sent ye to tell her
that I loved her; have I ever sent ye to tell her that I've quit?
I should think you'd know, by this time, that I'm na quitter.
Love her! Why, I love her till I can see her standin' plain
before me, when I know she's a mile away. Love her! Why, I can
smell her any place I am, sweeter than any flower I ever held to
my face. Love her! Till the day I dee I'll love her. But it ain't
any fault of yours, and if ye've come to the place where I worry
ye, that's the place where I go, as I wanted to on the same day
ye brought Mary to Rainbow Bottom."
Jimmy's gray jaws fell open. Jimmy's sullen eyes cleared. He
caught Dannie by the arm.
"For the love of Hivin, what did I say, Dannie?" he panted. "I
must have been half asleep. Go! You go! You leave Rainbow Bottom!
Thin, by God, I go too! I won't stay here without you, not a day.
If I had to take my choice between you, I'd give up Mary before
I'd give up the best frind I iver had. Go! I guess not, unless I
go with you! She can go to----"
"Jimmy! Jimmy!" cautioned Dannie.
"I mane ivery domn word of it," said Jimmy. "I think more of you,
than I iver did of any woman."
Dannie drew a deep breath. "Then why in the name of God did ye
SAY that thing to me? I have na betrayed your trust in me, not
ever, Jimmy, and ye know it. What's the matter with ye?"
Jimmy heaved a deep sigh, and rubbed his hands across his hot,
angry face. "Oh, I'm just so domn sore!" he said. "Some days I
get about wild. Things haven't come out like I thought they
would."
"Jimmy, if ye are in trouble, why do ye na tell me? Canna I help
ye? Have'nt I always helped ye if I could?"
"Yes, you have," said Jimmy. "Always, been a thousand times too
good to me. But you can't help here. I'm up agin it alone, but
put this in your pipe, and smoke it good and brown, if you go, I
go. I don't stay here without you."
"Then it's up to ye na to make it impossible for me to stay,"
said Dannie. "After this, I'll try to be carefu'. I've had no
guard on my lips. I've said whatever came into my heid."
The supper bell clanged sharply a second time.
"That manes more Hivin on the Wabash," said Jimmy. "Wish I had a
bracer before I face it."
"How long has it been, Jimmy?" asked Dannie.
"Etarnity!" replied Jimmy briefly.
Dannie stood thinking, and then light broke. Jimmy was always
short of money in summer. When trapping was over, and before any
crops were ready, he was usually out of funds. Dannie hesitated,
and then he said, "Would a small loan be what ye need, Jimmy?"
Jimmy's eyes gleamed. "It would put new life into me," he cried.
"Forgive me, Dannie. I am almost crazy."
Dannie handed over a coin, and after supper Jimmy went to town.
Then Dannie saw his mistake. He had purchased peace for himself,
but what about Mary?
Chapter VI
THE HEART OF MARY MALONE
"This is the job that was done with the reaper,
If we hustle we can do it ourselves,
Thus securing to us a little cheaper,
The bread and pie upon our pantry shelves.
Eat this wheat, by and by,
On this beautiful Wabash shore,
Drink this rye, by and by,
Eat and drink on this beautiful shore."
So sang Jimmy as he drove through the wheat, oats and rye
accompanied by the clacking machinery. Dannie stopped stacking
sheaves to mop his warm, perspiring face and to listen. Jimmy
always with an eye to the effect he was producing immediately
broke into wilder parody:
"Drive this mower, a little slower,
On this beautiful Wabash shore,
Cuttin' wheat to buy our meat,
Cuttin' oats, to buy our coats,
Also pants, if we get the chance.
By and by, we'll cut the rye,
But I bet my hat I drink that, I drink that.
Drive this mower a little slower,
In this wheat, in this wheat, by and by."
The larks scolded, fluttering over head, for at times the reaper
overtook their belated broods. The bobolinks danced and chattered
on stumps and fences, in an agony of suspense, when their nests
were approached, and cried pitifully if they were destroyed. The
chewinks flashed from the ground to the fences and trees, and
back, crying "Che-wink?" "Che-wee!" to each other, in such
excitement that they appeared to be in danger of flirting off
their long tails. The quail ran about the shorn fields, and
excitedly called from fence riders to draw their flocks into the
security of Rainbow Bottom.
Frightened hares bounded through the wheat, and if the cruel
blade sheared into their nests, Dannie gathered the wounded and
helpless of the scattered broods in his hat, and carried them to
Mary.
Then came threshing, which was a busy time, but after that,
through the long hot days of late July and August, there was
little to do afield, and fishing was impossible. Dannie grubbed
fence corners, mended fences, chopped and corded wood for winter,
and in spare time read his books. For the most part Jimmy kept
close to Dannie. Jimmy's temper never had been so variable.
Dannie was greatly troubled, for despite Jimmy's protests of
devotion, he flared at a word, and sometimes at no word at all.
The only thing in which he really seemed interested was the coon
skin he was dressing to send to Boston. Over that he worked by
the hour, sometimes with earnest face, and sometimes he raised
his head, and let out a whoop that almost frightened Mary. At
such times he was sure to go on and give her some new detail of
the hunt for the fifty coons, that he had forgotten to tell her
before.
He had been to the hotel, and learned the Thread Man's name and
address, and found that he did not come regularly, and no one
knew when to expect him; so when he had combed and brushed the
fur to its finest point, and worked the skin until it was velvet
soft, and bleached it until it was muslin white, he made it into
a neat package and sent it with his compliments to the Boston
man. After he had waited for a week, he began going to town every
day to the post office for the letter he expected, and coming
home much worse for a visit to Casey's. Since plowing time he had
covering the earth with drifts of plum, cherry, and apple bloom,
like late falling snow. Then great black clouds came sweeping
across the sky, and massed above Rainbow Bottom. The lightning
flashed as if the heavens were being cracked open, and the
rolling thunder sent terror to the hearts of man and beast. When
the birds flew for shelter, Dannie and Jimmy unhitched their
horses, and raced for the stables to escape the storm, and to be
with Mary, whom electricity made nervous.
They would sit on the little front porch, and watch the greedy
earth drink the downpour. They could almost see the grass and
flowers grow. When the clouds scattered, the thunder grew
fainter; and the sun shone again between light sprinkles of rain.
Then a great, glittering rainbow set its arch in the sky, and it
planted one of its feet in Horseshoe Bend, and the other so far
away they could not even guess where.
If it rained lightly, in a little while Dannie and Jimmy could go
back to their work afield. If the downpour was heavy, and made
plowing impossible, they pulled weeds, and hoed in the garden.
Dannie discoursed on the wholesomefreshness of the earth, and
Jimmy ever waited a chance to twist his words, and ring in a
laugh on him. He usually found it. Sometimes, after a rain, they
took their bait cans, and rods, and went down to the river to
fish.
If one could not go, the other religiously refrained from casting
bait into the pool where the Black Bass lay. Once, when they were
fishing together, the Bass rose to a white moth, skittered over
the surface by Dannie late in the evening, and twice Jimmy had
strikes which he averred had taken the arm almost off him, but
neither really had the Bass on his hook. They kept to their own
land, and fished when they pleased, for game laws and wardens
were unknown to them.
Truth to tell, neither of them really hoped to get the Bass
before fall. The water was too high in the spring. Minnows were
plentiful, and as Jimmy said, "It seemed as if the domn plum tree
just rained caterpillars." So they bided their time, and the
signs prohibiting trespass on all sides of their land were many
and emphatic, and Mary had instructions to ring the dinner bell
if she caught sight of any strangers.
The days grew longer, and the sun was insistent. Untold miles
they trudged back and forth across their land, guiding their
horses, jerked about with plows, their feet weighted with the
damp, clinging earth, and their clothing pasted to their wet
bodies. Jimmy was growing restless. Never in all his life had he
worked so faithfully as that spring, and never had his visits to
Casey's so told on him. No matter where they started, or how hard
they worked, Dannie was across the middle of the field, and
helping Jimmy before the finish. It was always Dannie who plowed
on, while Jimmy rode to town for the missing bolt or buckle, and
he generally rolled from his horse into a fence corner, and
slept the remainder of the day on his return.
The work and heat were beginning to tire him, and his trips to
Casey's had been much less frequent than he desired. He grew to
feel that between them Dannie and Mary were driving him, and a
desire to balk at slight cause, gathered in his breast. He
deliberately tied his team in a fence corner, lay down, and fell
asleep. The clanging of the supper bell aroused him. He opened
his eyes, and as he rose, found that Dannie had been to the barn,
and brought a horse blanket to cover him. Well as he knew
anything, Jimmy knew that he had no business sleeping in fence
corners so early in the season. With candor he would have
admitted to himself that a part of his brittle temper came from
aching bones and rheumatic twinges. Some way, the sight of Dannie
swinging across the field, looking as fresh as in the early
morning, and the fact that he had carried a blanket to cover him,
and the further fact that he was wild for drink, and could think
of no excuse on earth for going to town, brought him to a
fighting crisis.
Dannie turned his horses at Jimmy's feet.
"Come on, Jimmy, supper bell has rung," he cried. "We mustn't
keep Mary waiting. She wants us to help her plant the sweet
potatoes to-nicht."
Jimmy rose, and his joints almost creaked. The pain angered him.
He leaned forward and glared at Dannie.
"Is there one minute of the day whin you ain't thinkin' about my
wife?" he demanded, oh, so slowly, and so ugly!
Dannie met his hateful gaze squarely. "Na a minute," he answered,
"excepting when I am thinking about ye."
"The Hell you say!" exploded the astonished Jimmy.
Dannie stepped out of the furrow, and came closer. "See here,
Jimmy Malone," he said. "Ye ain't forgot the nicht when I told ye
I loved Mary, with all my heart, and that I'd never love another
woman. I sent ye to tell her fra me, and to ask if I might come
to her. And ye brought me her answer. It's na your fault that she
preferred ye. Everybody did. But it IS your fault that I've
stayed on here. I tried to go, and ye wouldna let me. So for
fifteen years, ye have lain with the woman I love, and I have
lain alone in a few rods of ye. If that ain't Man-Hell, try some
other on me, and see if it will touch me! I sent ye to tell her
that I loved her; have I ever sent ye to tell her that I've quit?
I should think you'd know, by this time, that I'm na quitter.
Love her! Why, I love her till I can see her standin' plain
before me, when I know she's a mile away. Love her! Why, I can
smell her any place I am, sweeter than any flower I ever held to
my face. Love her! Till the day I dee I'll love her. But it ain't
any fault of yours, and if ye've come to the place where I worry
ye, that's the place where I go, as I wanted to on the same day
ye brought Mary to Rainbow Bottom."
Jimmy's gray jaws fell open. Jimmy's sullen eyes cleared. He
caught Dannie by the arm.
"For the love of Hivin, what did I say, Dannie?" he panted. "I
must have been half asleep. Go! You go! You leave Rainbow Bottom!
Thin, by God, I go too! I won't stay here without you, not a day.
If I had to take my choice between you, I'd give up Mary before
I'd give up the best frind I iver had. Go! I guess not, unless I
go with you! She can go to----"
"Jimmy! Jimmy!" cautioned Dannie.
"I mane ivery domn word of it," said Jimmy. "I think more of you,
than I iver did of any woman."
Dannie drew a deep breath. "Then why in the name of God did ye
SAY that thing to me? I have na betrayed your trust in me, not
ever, Jimmy, and ye know it. What's the matter with ye?"
Jimmy heaved a deep sigh, and rubbed his hands across his hot,
angry face. "Oh, I'm just so domn sore!" he said. "Some days I
get about wild. Things haven't come out like I thought they
would."
"Jimmy, if ye are in trouble, why do ye na tell me? Canna I help
ye? Have'nt I always helped ye if I could?"
"Yes, you have," said Jimmy. "Always, been a thousand times too
good to me. But you can't help here. I'm up agin it alone, but
put this in your pipe, and smoke it good and brown, if you go, I
go. I don't stay here without you."
"Then it's up to ye na to make it impossible for me to stay,"
said Dannie. "After this, I'll try to be carefu'. I've had no
guard on my lips. I've said whatever came into my heid."
The supper bell clanged sharply a second time.
"That manes more Hivin on the Wabash," said Jimmy. "Wish I had a
bracer before I face it."
"How long has it been, Jimmy?" asked Dannie.
"Etarnity!" replied Jimmy briefly.
Dannie stood thinking, and then light broke. Jimmy was always
short of money in summer. When trapping was over, and before any
crops were ready, he was usually out of funds. Dannie hesitated,
and then he said, "Would a small loan be what ye need, Jimmy?"
Jimmy's eyes gleamed. "It would put new life into me," he cried.
"Forgive me, Dannie. I am almost crazy."
Dannie handed over a coin, and after supper Jimmy went to town.
Then Dannie saw his mistake. He had purchased peace for himself,
but what about Mary?
Chapter VI
THE HEART OF MARY MALONE
"This is the job that was done with the reaper,
If we hustle we can do it ourselves,
Thus securing to us a little cheaper,
The bread and pie upon our pantry shelves.
Eat this wheat, by and by,
On this beautiful Wabash shore,
Drink this rye, by and by,
Eat and drink on this beautiful shore."
So sang Jimmy as he drove through the wheat, oats and rye
accompanied by the clacking machinery. Dannie stopped stacking
sheaves to mop his warm, perspiring face and to listen. Jimmy
always with an eye to the effect he was producing immediately
broke into wilder parody:
"Drive this mower, a little slower,
On this beautiful Wabash shore,
Cuttin' wheat to buy our meat,
Cuttin' oats, to buy our coats,
Also pants, if we get the chance.
By and by, we'll cut the rye,
But I bet my hat I drink that, I drink that.
Drive this mower a little slower,
In this wheat, in this wheat, by and by."
The larks scolded, fluttering over head, for at times the reaper
overtook their belated broods. The bobolinks danced and chattered
on stumps and fences, in an agony of suspense, when their nests
were approached, and cried pitifully if they were destroyed. The
chewinks flashed from the ground to the fences and trees, and
back, crying "Che-wink?" "Che-wee!" to each other, in such
excitement that they appeared to be in danger of flirting off
their long tails. The quail ran about the shorn fields, and
excitedly called from fence riders to draw their flocks into the
security of Rainbow Bottom.
Frightened hares bounded through the wheat, and if the cruel
blade sheared into their nests, Dannie gathered the wounded and
helpless of the scattered broods in his hat, and carried them to
Mary.
Then came threshing, which was a busy time, but after that,
through the long hot days of late July and August, there was
little to do afield, and fishing was impossible. Dannie grubbed
fence corners, mended fences, chopped and corded wood for winter,
and in spare time read his books. For the most part Jimmy kept
close to Dannie. Jimmy's temper never had been so variable.
Dannie was greatly troubled, for despite Jimmy's protests of
devotion, he flared at a word, and sometimes at no word at all.
The only thing in which he really seemed interested was the coon
skin he was dressing to send to Boston. Over that he worked by
the hour, sometimes with earnest face, and sometimes he raised
his head, and let out a whoop that almost frightened Mary. At
such times he was sure to go on and give her some new detail of
the hunt for the fifty coons, that he had forgotten to tell her
before.
He had been to the hotel, and learned the Thread Man's name and
address, and found that he did not come regularly, and no one
knew when to expect him; so when he had combed and brushed the
fur to its finest point, and worked the skin until it was velvet
soft, and bleached it until it was muslin white, he made it into
a neat package and sent it with his compliments to the Boston
man. After he had waited for a week, he began going to town every
day to the post office for the letter he expected, and coming
home much worse for a visit to Casey's. Since plowing time he had
- thunder [´θʌndə]
n.雷 vi.打雷 vt.吼出 (初中英语单词) - terror [´terə] n.恐怖；惊骇 (初中英语单词)
- lightly [´laitli] ad.轻微地，稍微 (初中英语单词)
- restless [´restləs] a.没有休息的 (初中英语单词)
- missing [´misiŋ] a.缺掉的；失踪的 (初中英语单词)
- beginning [bi´giniŋ] n.开始，开端；起源 (初中英语单词)
- frequent [´fri:kwənt] a.常见的，频繁的 (初中英语单词)
- sleeping [´sli:piŋ] n.&a.睡着(的) (初中英语单词)
- temper [´tempə] n.韧度 v.锻炼；调和 (初中英语单词)
- waiting [´weitiŋ] n.等候；伺候 (初中英语单词)
- breath [breθ] n.呼吸；气息 (初中英语单词)
- whatever [wɔt´evə] pron.&a.无论什么 (初中英语单词)
- sharply [´ʃɑ:pli] ad.锋利地；剧烈地 (初中英语单词)
- despite [di´spait] prep.尽管 (初中英语单词)
- earnest [´ə:nist] a.认真的 n.认真；诚恳 (初中英语单词)
- package [´pækidʒ] n.包(裹) vt.组装 (初中英语单词)
- cherry [´tʃeri] n.樱桃(树) (高中英语单词)
- rainbow [´reinbəu] n.彩虹 (高中英语单词)
- electricity [i,lek´trisiti] n.电；电学；电流 (高中英语单词)
- wholesome [´həulsəm] a.有益于健康的 (高中英语单词)
- faithfully [´feiθfəli] ad.忠实地；诚恳地 (高中英语单词)
- remainder [ri´meində] n.剩余物；残余部分 (高中英语单词)
- sullen [´sʌlən] a.不高兴的 (高中英语单词)
- pantry [´pæntri] n.食品室；餐具室 (高中英语单词)
- learned [´lə:nid] a.有学问的，博学的 (高中英语单词)
- regularly [´regjuləli] ad.有规律地；经常地 (高中英语单词)
- freshness [´freʃnis] n.新鲜 (英语四级单词)
- buckle [´bʌkəl] n.带扣 v.(用...)扣住 (英语四级单词)
- hateful [´heitfəl] a.可恨的，可憎的 (英语四级单词)
- squarely [´skwɛəli] ad.成方形地；正直地 (英语四级单词)
- furrow [´fʌrəu] n.沟 vt.犁；使起皱纹 (英语四级单词)
- hustle [´hʌsəl] v.猛挤；催促 n.乱堆 (英语四级单词)
- fishing [´fiʃiŋ] n.钓鱼；捕鱼；渔业 (英语四级单词)
- muslin [´mʌzlin] n.平纹细布，薄纱织物 (英语四级单词)
- cracked [krækt] a.有裂缝的；碎的；粗哑 (英语六级单词)
- horseshoe [´hɔ:s,ʃu] n.马蹄铁；马蹄铁形 (英语六级单词)
- trespass [´trespəs, -pæs] vi.&n.侵入(占)；打扰 (英语六级单词)
- emphatic [im´fætik] a.强调的；断然的 (英语六级单词)
- insistent [in´sistənt] a.坚持的；逼人注意的 (英语六级单词)
- untold [,ʌn´təuld] a.没有说到的；无数的 (英语六级单词)
- belated [bi´leitid] a.延误的；遗留的 (英语六级单词)
- suspense [sə´spens] n.悬挂；悬虑不安 (英语六级单词)
- august [ɔ:´gʌst] a.尊严的；威严的 (英语六级单词)
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章节正文
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