CHAPTER XI.
"All things rejoiced beneath the sun—the weeds,
The river, and the cornfields, and the reeds,
The willow leaves that glanced in the light breeze,
And the firm foliage of the larger trees."
The rain that brought back sense and sound to Myron Holder lasted for three days, falling steadily during that time; it was succeeded by the most joyous of weather. The spring was past; the grass grew lush and green beside the little waterways that the rain had created by the roadside; these mimic rivers had in miniature all the diversities and beauties of their greater brethren. There was a gradual decline from the inland to the lake, and adown this many of these evanescent streams found their way.
The stream that passed the Deans farm was the very epitome of Life. Now a large stone obstructed its course and divided its shallow flood, which crept sadly round either side of this rocky islet, to gush gayly together beyond it; after a short space of calm it rushed against an upturned sod and, broken and ragged, fell in tatters over the brink into the little pool below, in whose tiny vortex floated twigs and bits of last year's grass, and perchance a glistening white feather from the breast of a gull; freed from its durance in the pool and not yet schooled to peace and patience, the stream sped on hastily and noisily, striving to find its way between the interlaced red roots of a cedar; its haste to get out into the sunlight defeated its object, and the close-knit fibres flung it back again and again, but it returned to the charge with tiny banners of foam and ripples of defiance; so the strife continued until the gathering ranks of water rose strong enough to toss the foremost clear over the barriers, and the stream went on its way cheerily until the dark culvert that took it across the road was reached, and as souls that plunge into the darkness of death leave all behind them, so this little stream left its foam, its ripples, its burden of twigs and wisps of grass and all its infinitesimal flotsam and jetsam, and essayed the darksome passage, a naked little stream; once out in the light again, it rippled on reflectively, until at last, its "tribute wave delivered," it merged its identity in the lake—losing (and here we cry with breathless lips, "Let it be like the soul in this also!") losing all puny consciousness of individual existence, only aware of being a part of that shining reservoir, dispensing beneficent gifts to air, and blessing and being blessed by the sun, that shone down more sweetly now upon it than when it was a vain and fretting brook.
The broad burdock leaves grew so rapidly in these days that their unstable stalks could not sustain them, and they trailed near the ground, bleached and unhealthy-looking, defacing the plant they should have adorned, like purposes unfulfilled for lack of will.
The wood violets spent all their surplus sap in leaves, and their later blooms were smothered in this luxuriance of foliage, as good resolves die 'mid many words.
In the maples, besides the singing of birds, there was now to be heard the "lisp of leaves" murmuring nature's alphabet. The swallows did not fly about so wildly, nor the bob-o-link, singing, soar so high—for the swallows hovered ever near the gray eaves of the barns, where, in their clay houses, the white eggs were being patiently warmed to life, and the bob-o-link (that slyest of birds) lingered ever in the grass meadows, where, upon a nest hid most cunningly, its mate sat listening to its singing. The ponds and the margins of the lake were alive with wriggling tadpoles, and Bing White hung enchanted over a pool left at the foot of his father's field where, when the sun was high, the water spiders darted hither and thither. It was not the insects Bing watched, but the shadows cast by them upon the sandy bottom of the pool; for, by a conspiracy between the water and the sun, the minute disks that form the feet of these creatures, and enable them to "walk upon the water" in very truth, were magnified a thousand times, and this enlarged refraction, like spots of gold, wavered through the water in consonance with the spiders' movements on the surface. When the sun shone brightly, the spiders came out in force, and darted about untiringly; it was as though the spiders wove a web of shining water, flinging round golden bobbins through the woof and weft of their fabric.
A little fawn-colored wild duck, belated in its journey to the north, came to this pool, a solitary but contented little bird, until Bing stoned it so persistently that it flew away one day, never to return. The spring grains were growing strongly, and the fall wheat was tall and vividly green, except that patches, bare save for knotty roots upthrown upon the surface, showed where, upon the high ground, it had been "winter killed," or spaces of bleached and yellowed blades indicated where, in the hollows, the heavy rains had "drowned it out." The blossoming of the fruit trees was past, that marvellous season of efflorescence and beauty, when the air is heavy with perfume and the paths strewn with petals—the rose and white of the apples, the mother-o'-pearl purity of the cherry, the fragrant ivory of the pears, loose-leaved plum flowers, and the hiding, faint-pink quince blooms—these and the peach blows that made gay and glad the gardens and the orchards.
And the woodlands and the lanes rejoiced also—for theirs were the cloyingly sweet blooms of the pea tree and the insignificant-looking but honey-smelling flowers of the locust, the bitter-sweet blossoms of the wild plum, so finely cut in tiny petals, so filled with snow-white stamens, so thickly massed together as to make the tree seem a fragrant snow cloud; then there was the red and pink of the "natural" apples, the ungrafted trees that had sprung up in every neighboring woodland; their taste was insipid, and had a peculiar, smoky flavor, but their blossoms were not less sweet than those of their cultured kinsfolk, and side by side with them stood the "choke cherry" with its long sprays of fragile blossoms that nauseate with their odor. Best of all, either in woodland or garden, orchard or lane, there was the wild crab-apple, upon whose gnarled and thorny branches grew its unspeakably sweet flower. The pink-veined petals folded about its perfumed centre, or opening but an hour or two, to disclose its golden heart, then, paling and falling, overcome by its own breath; for in the perfume of the wild crab-apple there lies all the story of the year, all the life of love; it has taken to itself all the sweetness, the bitterness, the languors, the fever, the desire, the satiety, the distaste, the joy, the sting of winter, the swoon of summer, the expectancy of spring, the overcoming of autumn, taken all, and mingling it with that we dream of, but know not, offers it to us upon thorny branches. And the fruit of these blossoms is bitter.
When the bloom was gone from all the trees, then the bees began to hum about the currant bushes, sipping the sweets of their green flowers, and there rose from orchard and field the savor of grape bloom. For Jamestown sent many hundred tons of grapes to the wine factories every year, and around the fences or over the cedars, there grew the "fox" grape, the "chicken" grape, and the bitter wild grape from which they distill a syrup for the throat.
Mrs. Deans' garden was "made," planted from side to side with vegetables, daily growing higher; the leaves were thickening on the currant bushes, and the young grape leaves were losing their downy whiteness and growing green and thick. Young turkeys, goslings, ducks, and baby chickens disputed with each other for the food dispensed so liberally to them; but Mrs. Deans ruled her poultry-yard, as she did her other belongings, with a rod of iron. The turkeys were the aristocrats of the place; they ate milk, white curds and chopped lettuce, and boiled eggs minced fine, with pepper; the rest fared on common meal—only all the spare time the bound girl had was spent in digging worms for the ducks.
"See that big worm there, Myron," she said one day, pointing to a huge, wriggling worm that two ducks were disputing possession of; "see that worm? Well, that's Mrs. Deans; of all the trouble that contrary critter give me I can't tell! It near wore me out, a-digging and a-digging; now it's in trouble its own self—you see—it'll be torn in two yet, yes—glad of it—there it goes! That'll happen to Mrs. Deans some day, when the Lord gets hold of her. Hush? I won't hush! Ain't she always a jangling? Jangling is something I can't abide, and how she goes it about nothing at all! She'll be tore in two along o' her ways, see if she ain't." With which satisfactory and encouraging prophecy Liz betook herself indoors.
Mrs. Deans had never found the time to go to Mrs. White's, but when one day her son Gamaliel told her he had seen Homer Wilson and Myron talking together in the "open village street" the heart of Mrs. Deans burned within her, and she reproached herself that she had not gone sooner; if she waited any longer it might be stale news; if they were brazen enough to talk to each other on the street—people—Jamestown people—would not fail to notice it; now that there was a possibility of other lips telling "young Ann White" of Homer Wilson's badness Mrs. Deans felt it incumbent upon her to act at once, to arise in her strength and baffle the designs of the evil one upon the unsuspecting citadel of young Ann White's heart. Mrs. Deans called it, to herself, "putting Homer Wilson's nose out of joint in that quarter anyhow," but the phrase matters little, the intention expressed being identical.
To "stir up the lazy and strengthen the weak" is a proceeding much to be admired doubtless, being enjoined by no less authoritative edict than the Westminster Confession; and however Mrs. Deans regarded the latter half of the injunction, she had nothing to reproach herself with in view of one of its requirements. That Mrs. Deans regarded all people under her as being lazy, as well as the majority of her neighbors, may be taken as granted; it will therefore be seen that she had little time for the latter half of the command. Before she left for Mrs. White's that day, she went to the kitchen and gave Liz and Myron an eloquent extempore narration of their past sins and shortcomings, their present delinquencies, their future state of sin and misery, proceeding to a peroration regarding the probabilities of their immortal lives, and rounding off her address with a pleasant prediction of eternal perdition for both of them. Having given them tasks they could not possibly perform before her return, Mrs. Deans turned her attention to her husband. As he could not move about much, and as he had a maddening gift for holding his tongue, Mrs. Deans was often exasperated by him; upon this occasion, having absolutely no handle to hinge her remarks upon, she contented herself with a few well-considered and audible reflections upon his utter uselessness, "either to God or man" as she put it, which threw such a burden upon her "helpless" shoulders; then she picked up his plug of chewing tobacco and narrowly regarded how much of it was gone, with a view to gauging the quantity he consumed in her absence. He squirmed under this; it affected him more than bitter words.
Having made every one as uncomfortable as possible, Mrs. Deans went her way.
Myron and Liz went out to their hoeing, Liz saying when once out of earshot of Mr. Deans:
"Did ye hear her jist, Myron, with that talk about 'eternal lakes of burning'—what's 'eternal' but 'continual?'—an' if Mrs. Deans ain't a continual burning torment her own self, I'll never drink water! Ain't she now, Myron? Why don't you speak out and say what you think? Keep still? Told us not to talk? Of course she did! She'd stop the dogs from barking if she could; I'll talk all I like! Old Stiffen can't see me till I get past the third currant bush, and I'll take care to be quiet then—old wretch he is! I'd like to scald him some day to see if that would limber him up and take him out of the kitchen, a-watchin' and a-watchin'." Liz, as a matter of fact, talked more than she hoed; but she had worked hard in a compulsory silence since daybreak, so it was hardly to be wondered at that she should be both slow and voluble now.
Myron's own eyes were heavy, and as she bent above her hoeing, her hands were none too eager for the toil, nor her feet too ready to advance; she worked on steadily though, and was beginning a new row before Liz completed her first one; as Liz passed her after some time to begin her second row, she said in an explosive undertone:
"You can't scare me with no hell-fire after living along o' Mrs. Deans;" then seeing Myron paid no heed, she muttered to herself, "and old Stiffen, too, he'd sicken any devil, a-watchin' and a-watchin'."
Liz, it will be seen, was not the model child of story book fame; the girl was the ordinary type of her class, with a thousand inherited failings, a dozen minor vices; but against these she had a heart that ached for love, a tongue that told the truth though it earned a blow; a generous and impulsive soul: but, alas, in Mrs. Deans' house she absorbed naught of good to offset her faults, save the virtue of courage and endurance, which, seeing Myron Holder's bravery, she cultivated through shame.
The hours passed.
Watching the girls as closely as he could, Henry Deans sat blinking in the sun, like a malevolent lizard lying in wait for flies.
Mrs. Deans meantime made her way along the road to Mrs. White's. The White house stood back some distance from the road, and was approached by a long, narrow lane, bordered by weather-beaten rail fences, none too well kept, Mrs. Deans thought wrathfully, as she stumbled over a broken rail; the grass had grown so rank about it that it was almost entirely hidden. Mrs. Deans inveighed against shiftlessness in general, and the White type in particular, all the way to the front door, whose iron handle and heavy knocker bespoke the age of the house; it was, indeed, one of the old landmarks, built at a time when the settlers hewed the finest oak trees in the wood for their kitchen rafters, and begrudged not to use the magnificent black walnuts for their stairs. This house had been the first one in Jamestown to have shutters—massive, solid affairs of oak, adjusted and held in place by heavy bars of iron that extended diagonally across them; the Whites, however, were much distressed by the old style of these shutters, and a year or two previously had substituted modern green slatted shutters upon the front of the house.
MRS. DEANS CALLS ON MRS. WHITE.
Young Ann White answered Mrs. Deans' knock, and ushered her in with awkward cordiality. Young Ann White's name was Ossie Annie Abbie Maria White, named after "four aunts and her pa" as Mrs. White said. The Jamestown people pronounced the first three names with a strong accent upon the first syllable, and the middle syllable of Maria they clung to until they lost breath and relinquished it with a gasp; as they uttered it, Miss White's name was a sentence by itself.
Mrs. White came bustling in before Mrs. Deans got seated, and after expressing her pleasure at seeing her, saying, "I declare, Jane, the sight of you's good for sore eyes!" entered with great zest into the discussion of village gossip. Mrs. White's sitting room was an apartment that evidenced loudly the taste and industry of Mrs. White and her daughter. It had a "boughten" carpet on the floor, and upon this were strewn hooked mats of strange and wonderful design, trees with roses, daisies and blue flowers of name unknown, growing luxuriantly upon every branch; bright yellow horses and green dogs stood together upon the same mat in millenium-like peace, undisturbed by the red birds and white cats that enjoyed the same vantage ground with them; but finer than any of the others was the black mat placed in the centre of the floor, as being less likely to be trodden upon there; its design was a salmon-pink girl in a green dress. By what was little less than inspiration, Mrs. White had formed the eyes out of two large and glistening black buttons. The chairs were black haircloth, each adorned with a crocheted tidy worked by Miss White; the making of these tidies was her life—by means of them she divided her life into times and seasons. Her one tragedy was compassed by the unholy fate of one which, being just completed, fell into the paws and from thence to the jaws of a mischievous collie puppy, and was speedily reduced to rags. Her great achievement was the making of a "Rose of Sharon" tidy out of No. 100 thread. She could always fix any date by recalling what tidy she was engaged upon at the time. There was the "Spider-web tidy," the "Sheaves of Wheat," the "Rose of Sharon," the "Double Wheel"; one she called a "Fancy patterning tidy," and another was known as the "One in strips."
The room had a large old-fashioned mantel-piece of heavy oak; beneath it had been a huge square fireplace, big enough to hold a roaring fire of logs, but the massive fire-board stood before it winter and summer now, for it was never used. The fire-board was also of oak, darkened to that tint that the virtuoso loves and the dealer in spurious antiques strives after in vain. But this year, Mrs. White had papered it over with wall paper, pink roses on a white ground, and a blue border.
"It does look so much more genteel and cheerful!" said Mrs. White, and Mrs. Deans agreed with her.
The mantel was decked with a gaudy china vase, with paper flowers in it; a lamp, in the oil of which was a piece of red flannel, thought to be decorative as it showed through the glass; a cross cut out of perforated cardboard, and two curious round objects like spheres of finely carven wood; these were clove apples. It was common in polite society in Jamestown to ask "How old is your clove apple?" The answer was usually given in years, and would have greatly surprised any stranger to clove apples. To make a clove apple, they selected the largest specimen of apple to be found (and in Jamestown that meant a very big apple indeed). Having got the apple, the next proceeding was to stick it full of cloves, as closely as possible; that was all—the cloves absorbed and dried the juices of the apple—the apple shrunk and shrunk, wedging the cloves tighter and tighter together; until at last they became so tightly welded together by the pressure that it was absolutely impossible to pull, pry, or cut one out; they were popular ornaments in Jamestown sitting-rooms. Mrs. White, when any reference to clove apples was made, invariably said that she remembered the time when tomatoes were called love apples, and kept for "ornamings," by which she meant ornaments.
The walls of Mrs. White's sitting-room were hung with pictures; there was a highly colored print representing a pair of white kittens against a red velvet background, playing with dominoes; there was a glazed chromo of a preternaturally blonde baby, sleeping in a preternaturally green field, bestrewn with preternaturally white daisies; a woodcut of Abraham Lincoln, one of Queen Victoria, and a diploma for the excellence of Mr. White's fat cattle completed the decoration of the walls, except above the door, where purple wools on a perforated cardboard asked again the piercing question, "What is Home Without a Mother?"
There was a centre-table, with a large Bible overlaid with a crocheted mat upon it, and a home-made foot-stool that tripped you up every time you entered the room.
Mrs. Deans had brought no work with her, and when Mrs. White produced a basket and began to piece a block of a quilt, Mrs. Deans begged for thread and needle. Young Ann White rose to get them, and Mrs. Deans said:
"Well, Ann, now who's this quilt for?" The girl bridled and tossed her head until her rough hair stood on end; her dull skin and phlegmatic temperament made blushing an impossibility. Mrs. White broke in with boisterous good humor:
"Oh, Ann knows who it's fer all right enough; it's a poor hen can't scratch fer one chick, and that's all Sam and me has got—one apiece—Ann and Bing. Ann's got eight quilts all pieced now; this is the album pattern. When I finish this, I'm going to work on a 'Rising Sun' and—show Mrs. Deans that lace you made fer pilly cases, Ann."
Ann went to obey.
"She's so set on them things," continued her mother in an undertone, with many nods and headshakings; "so set on 'em. It's really wonderful; it makes me real nervous sometimes. There was Sarah—my cousin twice removed by marriage on Sam's side—and when she had consumpting, nothing would do but she must have a boughten feather; time and time again I argued with her, but never to no account—a boughten feather she would have, and being near the end, and being the only one the Clem Whiteses had, why they took to it that they'd humor her. So one day off Clem started and got the feather; he went to a millingnery store, and he says, says he, 'If the feather don't suit the lady—if it ain't becomin,' he said, for the clerk looked up sharp; 'If it ain't becomin,' Clem said, being always one to use fine language, 'if it ain't becomin,' I'll bring it back and change it for something else.'
"So he took the feather home, and three days after Sarah died, real reconciled 'cause she'd got the feather; they was real afraid she'd ask them to bury it with her, she thought so much of it, but they'd head her off if they thought she was going to speak of it, and remind her her end was near, which didn't make her enjoy the feather any the less, but just made her say less about it. Well, when the end came, it came suddent and she had no time to ask any promises; but she held on to it and when they drawed the pilly away, she still had it in her hand; well, her mother took it back to the millingnery store and got a whole black bunnit for the price of that feather. It's terrible what they do ask for them; they say Sam Warner's wife had more than an idea of getting one in the city when they went down to sell the wool, but I guess she thought that would be just a little more than his people would stand, and give up the idea—but pshaw! I wouldn't be surprised any day to see her with a feather; she's bought buttoned shoes for that young one of hers; why, my land! our Ann never had a pair of buttoned shoes till long after she had spoke in after-meeting.
"But Ann's so set on them things, it fairly makes me wonder if it ain't a warning that she'll be cut down. You know how 'tis with us all, Jane, 'the flower fadeth.'" Here Ann returned with various rolls of crochet trimming for Mrs. Deans to see; she unpinned the ends, extended them upon her black apron, and waited the praise she deserved. Mrs. Deans gave it liberally, but did not fail to describe the work she had seen at Mrs. Wilson's, left there by one of her market customers who came out to spend the day. Mrs. Deans described this production in such marvellous terms that Ann gathered up her treasures quite sadly, and as she pinned up each fat little roll wondered if by any possibility she could get the pattern.
Ann sat down to a tidy of intricate design—her mother babbled on about Bing and Ann, and her chickens and her garden; Mrs. Deans felt irritated. The door of the sitting-room opened upon the veranda; it was flung wide open, and held back by a cloth-covered brick, and the sunshine streamed gloriously across the gaudy mats.
Mrs. White was flowery of speech, being much given to the quoting of Scripture and apt to indulge in poetical similes drawn from the poetry of Mrs. Hemans, as used in the school-books. She was herself a poet of wide local repute, having composed the epitaph for a son lost in babyhood; engraved upon his tombstone it read:
"Good-by, young William Henry White,—
The fever took you from me quite.
The time has come for us to sever;
But, William Henry, not forever."
Mrs. White wore her hair, still dark and abundant, in rows of curls. It was only after Ann grew up that she discarded the blue ribbon she had affected since her own girlhood.
Sitting in the sunshine, Mrs. Deans felt this comfortable self-satisfaction to be an unholy thing upon the part of the Whites. So she said abruptly:
"Isn't it a terrible thing about Homer Wilson? Well, it'll teach Marian a lesson; she set too much store on Homer altogether. I knowed what Homer Wilson was long before this came out!"
"Why, Jane, I never heard anything against Homer! What do you mean?" asked Mrs. White, looking over her spectacles at Mrs. Deans.
"Why, they say—but I don't want this mentioned, Ann; I want this kept particular confidential between us two, and no one else to be the wiser, though the talk's getting round, as others can tell beside me. But what folks tell is that if Myron Holder's young one ain't named Homer, it ain't because it hadn't ought to be."
"Well, my lands!" said Mrs. White, whilst her daughter said nothing, but got up and went out of the room.
"Yes," said Mrs. Deans, "that's what they say, and I could tell things. But standing in the light of one who's tried to do the best she can for everybody, I never said a word! But there—there's no use talking over them; the point was, I felt it a duty when I heard he was sitting up with your Ann."
Mrs. Deans paused—there was no reply—so she continued: "I felt you ought to know the truth of how things stood; so putting aside my own feelings, as I have to do very often, I came to let you know what sort of a fellow Homer Wilson is."
"To think of it!" said Mrs. White. "Truly 'this life is but a fleeting show!' Homer Wilson! What he has said to Ann I can't say, not knowing; but as for sitting up, whatever sitting up was done was done irregular, now and then, as luck chanced; there was nothing regular, no promising, no conversational lozenges, no buggy drives. No, Ann ain't no call to be worried, though it's terrible to think how he'll suffer when he knows Ann is not for him, can never be his; no, that hope is gone—no, Homer Wilson, thou must go thy ways withouten help from Ann."
Mrs. Deans felt exasperated. "Such stuff and nonsense," she thought. "Homer Wilson would never look at Ann White, if he could get another girl; Ann White, indeed!" She woke from her silence with a start.
"Well, I'm glad it's no worse," she said; "only you'd better tell Ann to be careful, for people are so ready with their tongues."
"Jest let me hear any one mention Ann's name and his'n," said Mrs. White; "jest let me hear 'em, they'll have to prove their sayings! 'Tell it in the country, tell it in the court,' is my motto. I'd never stand no creepin', sneakin' talk about my folks!" Here she was interrupted by her son Bing, who dashed along the veranda, flung himself down on the open door-step, and ejaculated:
"Bats bring bedbugs."
"What?" said Mrs. Deans.
"For the land's sake, Bing, what are you talking about?" asked his mother.
"Bats," said Bing, chattering his words out with his customary rapidity. "Caught one in the back bedroom, between the shatter and the window; bites like the mischief; got round ears that stick up—got fur on it—got leather wings, and bedbugs under 'em."
"Well, it beats all," said his mother, and Mrs. Deans looked at him curiously. But keen as her eyes were, they saw no change in him from the boy of four or five years back. For although Bing was between sixteen and seventeen, he was no larger than a child of twelve: an ill-conditioned, withered, hard little figure. His frame was spare, his little face, with its high cheek-bones, was always flushed, as though fevered by a dry and burning heat; his eyes were very light blue, very small, very cruel-looking. They were set in a network of wrinkles. His hands were horny and thin. He stayed but a moment, then rushed off as quickly as he had come.
"Bing don't grow much," said Mrs. Deans, with a curious intonation in her voice and a covert glance at Mrs. White.
Mrs. White looked a little uncomfortable, and answered rather hastily:
"No, the Whites is all slow growers. Sam grew after we was married, and Sam's brother grew till he began to get bald!"
Mrs. Deans preserved a disagreeable silence.
Young Ann entered the room as composedly as she had left it.
"Where have you been, Ann?" asked her mother, a little sharply.
"Fixing curds for the turkeys," said the girl, placidly.
"Well, I declare, I'd forgotten it entire!" said Mrs. White. "I am glad to find that you have such a thoughtful mind."
"Oh, ma!" said young Ann, in an acme of admiration. Mrs. White smiled, as who should say, "I can't restrain my muse," and continued in the same voice: "Shall we go out and see the feathered tribe eat their humble portion?"
Mrs. Deans rose gladly, and out they went into the sunshine. It was one of those days—so perfect, if one can enjoy it without toil, in darkened rooms or shady nooks—so intolerable, if bodily toil beneath the blazing sun is demanded. They went about leisurely, watched the melancholy young turkeys picking daintily at their food, encouraged to the attack by the solitary little chicken that was domiciled in their coop. When the turkey eggs were hatching, careful poultry-keepers put one hen egg in with them, so that the chicken might "show them how to eat." This one, vigorous little black Spanish chick, certainly performed its duties nobly—its compact little body darting here and there among the turkeys, staggering about on their long, fragile legs. They passed Bing, lying on his back under a chestnut tree.
Mrs. Deans and Mrs. White grew very affable over the poultry, and the clouds dropped down, with the dewy darkness of a moonless summer night, before Mrs. Deans went home.
She was, upon the whole, dissatisfied with her visit. Those Whites were so disgustingly equable—so ridiculously pleased with themselves—and that Bing White! of all the objects! Mrs. Deans slept at last, her brows drawn in the ill-natured pose her thoughts suggested.
The Whites slumbered peacefully, save where Bing lay, his eyes gleaming in the dark, as he dreamt long, waking dreams of ghastly pleasures; but he too slept at last, his fingers twitching as he slept, his lips like two streaks of blood.
Myron Holder slept the too-sound sleep of weariness, her yellow-haired baby on her breast, her face placid and calmed into severe lines of beauty.
Homer Wilson tossed and flung his strong arm above his head and murmured a woman's name, and crossed it with another, clinched his upraised hand; and, murmuring, slept.
Deeper and deeper fell the silence; darker and darker grew the midnight; heavier and heavier sleep sank upon those different hearts; until they all beat with the measured cadence of oblivion—until, albeit delayed by devious paths and difficult gates, they all reached the poppied meadow of deep sleep.