He had placed himself on the side of the drive-house door and demanded that his apples be carried in then and there. Disney longed to refuse, but his agreement provided that he perform all the labor of harvesting and storing Mr. Carroll's share. There was nothing for it, therefore, but to obey the irascible old man, who, in numerous playful ways, made the carrying in of the fruit a weariness of the flesh to Disney. He stopped him to pull stray wisps of grass out of his pails, or to examine a purely imaginary blemish in an apple. He let his cane slip down so that Disney tripped over it. He took one of the pails, and pretended to fix one of the handles, which was perfectly secure as it was—and all the time he talked, gently, irritatingly, making the most innocent of pauses for replies that Disney felt he must make, but which he made as briefly as possible.
The afternoon waned; finally the last apple of the heap was transferred to the drive-house. Then Mr. Carroll rose, trying his best to conceal the stiffness of his joints from Disney, locked the drive-house door and limped off to his lonely house, solitary but triumphant.
A little later he watched the departure of the disgusted Disney and his pickers—Myron Holder dragging wearily home alone, body and heart alike aching; the rest slyly nudging one another, with meaning looks at Disney's sullen face.
Still later, when Mr. Carroll blew out his yellow wax candle, he pushed aside the limp white blind, raised the many-paned window and looked forth into the moonlight. It was very clear and quiet. Disney's pile of apples lay roughly outlined beneath its covering of old sacks. Mr. Carroll looked at it amusedly—as he looked a stray apple, left swinging unseen, fell. As the sound reached his ears a malevolent smile irradiated his face. Still smiling, he put the window down, let the blind fall and sought sleep.
That night Myron Holder traversed the road home in the deepest dejection; forced to endure all day the covert sneers of the other pickers, with extreme bodily weariness added to her mental burden, helpless as a fly from which a wanton hand has torn the wings, she felt, as she trod her solitary way home, utterly despairing.
Ere she was fairly within the doors her grandmother's taunting words met her. Roused from her long apathy of mute endurance, she tore her sunbonnet from her head and flashed one dreadful look of rage and defiance at the old woman—such a look as made Mrs. Holder' stagger back, holding up her hand as if to shield herself from a blow. Terrified at the turmoil in her own breast, Myron turned and fled into her room. She saw the boy's little form upon the blue and white checked counterpane of her bed, she rushed up to the couch, her hands were clenched, her heart seemed throbbing in her throat. Dreadful thoughts circled about her, wild and diverse, but all hung upon the one axis of pain. Half in delirium, she bent over the child. It looked up at her and smiled, and stirred feebly, but yet as if its impulses made towards her. With a cry she caught it to her bosom.
There was one creature that yet smiled upon her. Thereafter, from day to day, throughout the long winter, her adoration of her child waxed stronger and stronger.
Every instant she could spare from her toiling she held it in her arms. On Sunday, when good Jamestown people did no extra work, Myron Holder had her only pleasure. For then she shut herself into her room with the child, whispering to it, caressing it, soothing it when awake, and during its long sleep holding it with loving avarice in her arms, too greedy of the cherished weight to relinquish it to the couch.
Her grandmother managed even from this tenderness to distill some bitter drops to add to Myron's cup. She dwelt long and eloquently upon the wrong Myron had done the child. Slowly the winter passed, and Mrs. Deans once more hired Myron Holder to come to the farm daily. The child was left with old Mrs. Holder, while Myron earned a subsistence for all three.
What Myron Holder endured daily no words can tell. By what written sign may we symbolize the agony of a heart, bruised and pierced and crushed day after day? By what language express the torture of a pure soul, stifled in a chrysalis of shame?