Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2006 18:21:13 +0200
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 --
rooted creature of the woods. When he was eleven and his father went away to the Civil War, he had watched him out of sight with no sorrow, only a burning envy of the wanderings that lay before the soldier. A little later, when it was decided that he should go to stay with his married sister, since she was left alone by her husbands departure to the war, he turned his back on his home with none of a childs usual reluctance, but with an eager delight in the day-long drive to the other end of the valley. That was the longest journey he had ever taken, the man of almost three-score thought, with an aching resentment against Fate.
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.
Hopelessness and resolution were alike struck out of his face by the fury of benevolence with which the old man cut him short. Dont you dare to speak a word against it, boy! cried Jehiel in a labored anguish. Good Lord! Im only doin it for you because I have to! Ive been through what youre layin out for yourself an stood it, somehow, an now Im most done with it all. But twould be like beginnin it all again to see you startin in.
