HARRY JAMES SMITH '02
Through the gathering gloom of a summer evening a young man walked wearily up the dusty road toward the Waring farmhouse. In each hand he carried a brimming pail and as he stepped along the milk in them flopped softly against their tin sides. Out from the white streak of sky behind his figure stood strongly relieved in silhouette, large, stooping, dispirited. The whole attitude was one of extreme fatigue, though for the silence and automatic movement of him you might almost think him a piece of ambulatory mechanism. Once or twice, to be sure, he turned his head, perhaps to look off over the cultivated fields and to calculate the labor still to be put on them, or possibly to draw a sort of unconscious, tired satisfaction from these encouraging results of so many weary hours. At any rate his pace never altered. Overhead the large maple trees reached their glooming branches in a mysterious, impenetrable canopy that rustled softly in the dusky silence. For the night was still, despite the squeaking of katydids and the distant peep of frogs. Along the sides of the road as it stretched on ahead like a brownish ribbon and vanished under the farther trees, ran stone walls, low and massive, and sharply hemming in the dusty highway from the cool, green fields beyond.
David Waring was not consciously aware of anything in the world, but his whole body was alive to the anticipation of the near end of his day's work. A few minutes more and he should have set the milk into the coolers, thrown off his overalls, and washed himself in cold spring water—and then he could drop into a chair on the quiet porch and take his ease.
Quite unexpectedly just ahead of him a young woman stepped out from the shadow of a tree and sprang lightly into the road. "Hello, David!" she said, waiting for him to come up to her. "You look as tired as a plough-horse. What's the matter?"
"Well, I am, Janet. It doesn't hardly seem as if I could push one foot ahead of another. Here I've been working all day long, and only just done at eight or nine o'clock."
"Poor boy," answered the girl. "Come and sit down a few minutes while I talk to you. I didn't go round to the house because I knew your father and mother would be off at meeting."
David needed no urging. He placed the pails of milk by the roadside and together the two sat down by the stone wall.
"I'd let you put your arm around me if you didn't smell so cowy," said
Janet with a little laugh.
"That's not my fault," he answered. "Somebody's got to milk the poor old beasts, and I don't know who would if I didn't. That doesn't make me like it, though. Oh Janet, when I feel as tired as I do to-night I get terribly sickened with all this humdrum life on the farm! It's just work, work, from morning till night and when you get done you're too tired to read or talk or do anything but just go to sleep like a big ox. If it weren't for father's and mother's sakes I believe I'd quit the old place in a minute. If I could only go off somewhere—anywhere, only to be out of sight of the farm!"
"Well, I like that, Mr. Waring," said the girl, with a look half indignant, half smiling. "Is that the only thing that keeps you here? I guess perhaps it's time for me to go home now."
"Oh, Janet, don't take it that way! You know what I mean. I'm just sick and tired of the whole business, and I wish to goodness I could throw it over. By the way, I suppose you know my brother's coming home from Yale to-morrow. It's almost two years since I've seen him except for a week or two. I guess he'll have changed some; his letters sound so, anyway."
"That's just what I came down to ask you about. I heard it yesterday and I'd be awfully glad if you two would come up to supper day after to-morrow—that's Sunday. I'm so anxious to see him because I know he'll have lots to tell us about college and the city and things like that. Oh, David, I get tired too of always staying here in the country and teaching school forever, when there are so many things to learn and so much to see off there in the world. That's what Loren can tell us about. It'll be next best to getting off somewhere one's self."
During the course of the conversation the streak of white in the west had turned to gray and the night was rapidly closing down. The girl jumped to the ground; "Good-night," she said, as she started away, "I'll see you both Sunday,—sure, now!"
David picked up his milk-pails and completed the work of the day. A little later he had seated himself on the porch. He felt discontented and unhappy though he could not have told exactly why. But one thing was evident—he was not anticipating Loren's home-coming with much pleasure. He felt, in fact, a certain reluctance, or rather timidity, about meeting this younger brother of his who knew so much and talked so much, and seemed to enjoy himself so thoroughly. He anticipated keenly the difference that two years must have brought between them, and dreaded the time when they should be put side by side once more and compared. For David, too—the older of the boys by a year—had expected to go to college and till the time came had never doubted the expediency of it. But, as is so often the case, that merry-making force in human affairs that we call Circumstance—or is it Providence?—had it fixed up otherwise. Mr. Waring had suddenly lighted upon chronic poor health as a daily companion on the walk of life, and his time was so much engrossed therewith that David seemed called upon—nay, impelled—to become the main-stay of the farm; Loren was still too young; financial affairs were far from encouraging; Mrs. Waring looked constantly to her older son for advice and assistance; in short, the golden gate of the future seemed to be drawing to, without any voluntary effort of his own. Yet he had often recalled since then the night—that breathless night in August four years ago—when he and his dearest ambition had had their last battle, and he had forced it to cover. "Loren shall have the best chance I can give him," he had said to himself, with his teeth gritted, "and God help me to stick it out here on the farm!" Thus it was, that, as usual, Dame Circumstance had won out by a good margin.
And now Loren had been two years at Yale and was coming home for the summer. Loren had learned a vast deal at college; among other scraps of intelligence he had discovered that his family were a little outlandish, and that Melton was altogether too slow a place for a rational being like himself to exist in except, at the best, for a few summer weeks. His latest letter, received only yesterday, was a characteristic one, and David had unintentionally resented its tone of breezy self-assurance: "… I suppose I shall show up at fair Melton," it had read, "about 2:35 on Saturday, unless, that is, I happen to get a few days' invite to New York. Of course David will be down to meet me and bring my trunk up." The words were innocent enough, but they had insinuated their way into his mind and rankled there like an evil thing. "Yes, of course I will be down," he said to himself somewhat bitterly; "of course I will, that's to be expected. And bring up his trunk for him; yes, that's just what I like—the chance to fetch Loren's trunk, and I like his way of taking it all for granted, too."
The mental transition to the matter of Janet's invitation was a natural one. He began to wish that she hadn't been in such a hurry about giving it. What could she want of Loren? He wasn't anything to her. Why did she have to be all the time hankering after new friends? "New friends!" With a slight internal start David realized that only three years ago Loren had never been away from home. "New friends!" Why, Janet had known them both ever since the old days of skip-rope and hide and seek! What more natural than that she should want to see her old play-fellow again? Why should he complain? Hadn't she said once, "I love you, David," and wasn't that enough to make him trust her?
A little way down the road he heard the step of some one approaching and in a moment the shape of a man grew visible through the darkness. He turned, opened the gate, and stepped to the porch. In his hand he carried a suit-case. This he set down heavily and approached the door. David sprang to his feet. "Why Loren, is that you? We weren't expecting you to-night."
"Well, how are you, old boy?" cried the new-comer. "It's bully good to see you again. No, I didn't expect to get up to-night, but there wasn't much doing at college and I didn't get my invite, so I thought I might as well come on home. Where are the folks?"
"Out at meeting just now, but they'll be back in a little while. Sit down, you must be tired."
Loren took a chair and sunk into it with a sigh of comfort. "You're right I am. I tell you it's hard work to walk a mile and a half with a suit-case. And all the time you were just sitting comfortably out here on the veranda listening to the katydids." He drew out his pipe and lit it. "Well, how are all the folks? Same as usual?"
"I guess so. Father's failing a little, and mother worries a good deal, but keeps pretty well."
"That's good. They must be mighty glad to have one of us at home to look after things. Lord, but I've often imagined you outdoors driving around in the open air and enjoying life when I've been plugging up for some beastly exam. But, apropos of the health bulletin, etc., is Janet Manning here still, or has she gone off to college?"
"No, she's teaching school at the Corners. I saw her a minute to-night, and she invited us up to supper there on Sunday."
"Good! That's something like. Shall be much charmed to see the little schoolma'am again. She's a slick little girl—at least she used to be. In my opinion she's wasting her time up here in the woods. Why, that girl's got ability, and I call it a shame for her to bury herself in the country just for her mother's account. But say, isn't that a wagon coming?"
The two went down to the gate and stood there waiting for the buggy to draw up. When Mr. and Mrs. Waring were out, David took the horse to the barn and unharnessed in the dark. Then he reentered the house, and without saying anything more than "Good-night," went up to his room.