LINK Not the wheat, though. Over them stone walls, thar comes the Johnnies, thick as grasshoppers: gray legs a-jumpin' through the tall wheat-tops, and now thar ain't no tops, thar ain't no wheat, thar ain't no lookin': jest blind feelin' round in the black mud, and trampin' on boys' faces, and grapplin' with hell-devils, and stink o' smoke, and stingin' smother, and—up thar through the dark— that crazy punkin sun, like an old moon lopsided, crackin' her red shell with thunder!
(In the distance, a bugle sounds, and the low martial music of a brass band begins. Again LINK'S face twitches, and he pauses, listening. From this moment on, the sound and emotion of the brass music, slowly growing louder, permeates the scene.)
POLLY
Oh! What was God a-thinkin' of, t' allow
the created world to act that awful?
LINK
Now,
I wonder!—Cast your eye along this hoe:
(He stirs the chips and wood-dirt round with the hoe-iron.)
Thar in that poked up mess o' dirt, you see yon weeny chip of ox-yoke?—That's the boy I spoke on: Link, Link Tadbourne: "Chipmunk Link," they call him, 'cause his legs is spry's a squirrel's.— Wall, mebbe some good angel, with bright eyes like yourn, stood lookin' down on him that day, keepin' the Devil's hoe from crackin' him.
(Patting her hand, which rests on his hoe)
If so, I reckon, Polly, it was you. But mebbe jest Old Nick, as he sat hoein' them hills, and haulin' in the little heaps o' squirmin' critters, kind o' reco'nized Link as his livin' image, and so kep' him to put in an airthly hell, whar thar ain't no legs, and worn-out devils sit froze in high-backed chairs, list'nin' to bugles—bugles—bugles, callin'.
(LINK clutches the sides of his chair, staring. The music
draws nearer. POLLY touches him soothingly.)
POLLY
Don't, dear; they'll soon quit playin'. Never mind'em.