The shed is open on both sides, front and back, the apertures being slightly arched at the top. [In bad weather, these presumably may be closed by big double doors, which stand open now—swung back outward beyond sight.] Thus the nearer opening is the proscenium arch of the scene, under which the spectator looks through the shed to the background—a grassy yard, a road with great trunks of soaring elms, and the glimpse of a green hillside. The ceiling runs up into a gable with large beams.
On the right, at back, a door opens into the shed from the house kitchen. Opposite it, a door leads from the shed into the barn. In the foreground, against the right wall, is a work-bench. On this are tools, a long, narrow, wooden box, and a small oil stove, with steaming kettle upon it.
Against the left wall, what remains of the year's wood supply is stacked, the uneven ridges sloping to a jumble of stove-wood and kindlings mixed with small chips on the floor, which is piled deep with mounds of crumbling bark, chips and wood-dust.
Not far from this mounded pile, at right center of the scene, stands a wooden arm-chair, in which Link Tadbourne, in his shirt-sleeves, sits drowsing. Silhouetted by the sunlight beyond, his sharp-drawn profile is that of an old man, with white hair cropped close, and gray mustache of a faded black hue at the outer edges. Between his knees is a stout thong of wood, whittled round by the drawshave which his sleeping hand still holds in his lap. Against the side of his chair rests a thick wooden yoke and collar. Near him is a chopping-block.
In the woodshed there is no sound or motion except the hum and floating steam from the tea-kettle. Presently the old man murmurs in his sleep, clenching his hand. Slowly the hand relaxes again. From the door, right, comes Polly—a sweet-faced girl of seventeen, quietly mature for her age. She is dressed simply. In one hand, she carries a man's wide-brimmed felt hat; over the other arm, a blue coat. These she brings toward Link. Seeing him asleep, she begins to tiptoe, lays the coat and hat on the chopping-block, goes to the bench and trims the wick of the oil-stove, under the kettle. Then she returns and stands near Link, surveying the shed.
On closer scrutiny, the jumbled woodpile has evidently a certain order in its chaos: some of the splittings have been piled in irregular ridges; in places, the deep layer of wood-dust and chips has been scooped, and the little mounds slope and rise like miniature valleys and hills.[33]
Taking up a hoe, Polly—with careful steps—moves among the hollows, placing and arranging sticks of kindling, scraping and smoothing the little mounds with the hoe.
As she does so, from far away, a bugle sounds.
Link [snapping his eyes wide open, sits up].
Hello! Cat-nappin' was I, Polly?
Polly. Just
a kitten-nap, I guess.
[Laying the hoe down, she approaches.]
The yoke done?