Date: Sat, 7 Oct 2006 18:22:49 -0300
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That evening, as he walked home after service, he told himself that he had never known so long a day. It seemed longer than all the rest of his life. Indeed he felt that some strange and racking change had come upon him since the morning, as though he were not the same person, as though he had been away on a long journey, and saw all things with changed eyes. bankrupt bric-a-brac hunter: Before he went into the house after his evening chores were done, he stopped for a moment and looked back at the cleft in the mountain wall through which the railroad left the valley. He had been looking longingly toward that door of escape all his life, and now he said good-by to it. Ah well, twant to be, he said, with an accent of weary finality; but then, suddenly out of the chill which oppressed his heart there sprang a last searing blast of astonished anguish. It was as if he realized for the first time all that had befallen him since the morning. He was racked by a horrified desolation that made his sturdy old body stagger as if under an unexpected blow. As he reeled he flung his arm about the pine tree and so stood for a time, shaking in a paroxysm which left him breathless when it passed. It was very still in the twilight where they stood. The faint murmur of a prayer came down from above, and while it lasted both were as though held motionless by its mesmeric monotony. Then at the boom of the organ, the lads last shred of self-control vanished. He burst again into muffled weary sobs, the light from the furnace glistening redly on his streaming cheeks. It aint right, Uncle Jehiel. I feel as though I was murderin somethin! But I cant help it. Ill go, Ill do as you say, but -- The thought reminded him of his evening chores, and he set off for the barn with a harsh jubilation that it was almost the last time he would need to milk. How far, he wondered, could he go on that money? He hurried through his work and into the house to his old desk. The faded text-ornament stood on the top shelf, but he did not see it, as he hastily tumbled out all the time-tables and sailing-lists. The habit of looking at them with the yearning bitterness of unreconciled deprivation was still so strong on him that even as he handled them eagerly, he hated them for the associations of years of misery they brought back to him. Underneath is another text, she said, and when your day of freedom comes I want you should promise me to cut the stitches, turn back the silk, and take the second text for your motto, so youll remember to be properly grateful. This is the second text. She put her hands on his shoulders and said in a loud, exultant voice, My soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowler. The snare is broken and I am escaped.
