Эллен Глазгоу - Barren Ground

"I suppose it was always better on the other side of the railroad."

"They're nearer the highway, of course, though that was bad enough when Ma was first married. Over here the roads were never mended unless a few of the farmers agreed to give so much labour, either of slaves or free negroes. Then, after the contract was made, something invariably got in the way and it fell through. Somebody died or fell ill or lost all his crops. You know how indisposed tenant farmers are to doing their share of work."

"And there wasn't even a store at Pedlar's Mill until Father started one?"

"Nothing but the mill. That was there as far back as anybody could remember, and there was always a Pedlar for a miller. The farmers from this side took corn there to be ground, and sometimes they would trade it for sugar or molasses. But the only store was far up at the Court-House. People bought their winter supplies when they went to town to sell tobacco. All the tobacco money went for coffee and sugar and clothes. That was why Pa raised a crop every year to the end of his life."

John Abner rose and stretched himself. "Well, I'm precious glad I live in the days of the telephone and the telegraph, with the hope of owning an automobile when they get cheaper." Going over to the window, he held his hand over his eyes and peered out. "You can't see a thing but snow. We might as well be dead and buried under it. Shall I take the butter over in the morning?"

"No, I'd like to go myself. You'd better stay and look after the milking." How inexorable were the trivial necessities of the farm! Anxieties might come and go, but the milking would not wait upon life or death. Not until John Abner had gone upstairs did she perceive that she had been talking, as her mother would have said, "to make company for herself."

"I've almost lost my taste for books," she thought, "and I used to be such a hungry reader."

After putting a fresh log on the fire, she flung herself on the bed, without undressing, and lay perfectly still while a nervous tremor, like the suspension of a drawn breath, crept over her. Toward daybreak, when the crashing of a dead branch on one of the locust trees sounded as if it had fallen on the roof, she realized that she was straining every sense for the noise of an approaching vehicle in the road. Then, rising hurriedly, she threw open the window and leaned out into the night. Nothing there. Only the lacquered darkness and the moon turning to a faint yellow-green over the fields of snow!

At four o'clock she went into the kitchen and began preparations for breakfast. When the coffee was ground, the water poured over it in the coffee-pot, and the batterbread mixed and put into the baking dish, she returned to her room and finished her dressing. By the time John Abner came down to go out to the cow-barn, she was waiting with her hat on and a pile of sheepskin rugs at her feet.

"I suppose we might as well send the butter out. Fluvanna has it ready," she said, watching him while he lighted his lantern from the lamp on the breakfast table. "If the trains have begun running again, they will expect it in Washington."

"It won't hurt anyway to take it along. I'll tell Nimrod to hitch up."

They both spoke as if the wreck had been merely a temporary inconvenience which was over. Vaguely, there swam through Dorinda's mind the image of her mother cooking breakfast in her best dress before she went to the Court-House. The old woman had worn the same expression of desperate hopefulness that Dorinda felt now spreading like a mask of beeswax over her own features. Already, though it was still dark, the life of the farm was stirring. As John Abner went out, she saw the stars of lanterns swinging away into the night, and when he returned to breakfast, Fluvanna was in the kitchen busily frying bacon and eggs. Before they had finished the meal, Nimrod appeared to say that the wagon was waiting, and rising hastily Dorinda slipped on her raccoon-skin coat.

"We'd better start," she said. "Give Uncle Elisha his breakfast, and tell him we will bring Jasper back with us. Keep the kettle on, so you can make coffee for Mr. Nathan as soon as he gets here."

Hurrying out, she climbed into the heavy wagon, and they started carefully down the slippery grade to the road. As they turned out of the gate, the wheels slid over the embedded rocks to the frozen ruts in the snow. Only a circle of road immediately in front of them was visible, and while the wagon rolled on, this spot of ground appeared to travel with them, never changing and never lingering in its passage. Into this illuminated circle tiny tracks of birds drifted and vanished like magic signs.

Presently, as they drew nearer Pedlar's Mill, a glimmer, so faint that it was scarcely more than a ripple on the surface of black waters, quivered in the darkness around them. With this ripple, a formless transparency floated up in the east, as a luminous mist swims up before an approaching candle. Out of this brightness, the landscape dawned in fragments, like dissolving views of the Arctic Circle. The sky was muffled overhead, but just as they reached the station a pale glow suffused the clouds beyond the ruined mill on the horizon.

"If the train was on time, it must have gone by an hour ago," Dorinda said, but she knew that there was no chance of its having gone by.

"Hit's gwineter thaw, sho' 'nuff, befo' sundown," Nimrod rejoined, speaking for the first time since they started.

"Yes, it's getting milder."

At that hour, in the bitter dawn, the station looked lonelier and more forsaken than ever. Hemmed in by the level sea of ice, the old warehouse and platform were flung there like dead driftwood. Even the red streak in the sky made the winter desolation appear more desolate.

At first she could distinguish no moving figures; but when they came nearer, she saw a small group of men gathered round an object which she had mistaken in the distance for one of the deserted freight cars.

Now she saw that this object was a train of a single coach, with an engine attached, and that the men were moving dark masses from the car to crude stretchers laid out on the snow.

"The trains are running again," Dorinda said hoarsely. "They must have got the track cleared."

"I hope dey's gwineter teck dis yeah budder," Nimrod returned. "Git up heah, hosses! We ain' got no mo' time to poke."

A chill passed down Dorinda's spine; but she was unaware of the cause that produced it, and her mind was vacant of thought. Then, while the wagon jolted up the slope, some empty words darted into her consciousness. "Something has happened. I feel that something has happened."

"Do you see anybody that you know, Nimrod?"

"Naw'm, I cyarn see nobody." Then he added excitedly, "But dar's somebody a-comin'. Ain' he ole Marse Jim Ellgood?" The horses stopped by the fence and began nuzzling the snow, while Nimrod dropped the reins and jumped down to lift out the butter. Standing up in the wagon, Dorinda beat her chilled hands together. Her limbs felt stiff with cold, and for a moment they refused to obey her will. Then recovering control of herself, she stepped down from the wagon and followed Nimrod in the direction of the store. Immediately, she was aware of a bustle about the track, and she thought, "How much human beings are like turkeys!" The group of men had separated as she approached, and two figures came forward to meet her across the snow. One was a stranger; the other, though it took her an instant to recognize him, was Bob Ellgood. "Why, he looks like an old man," she said to herself. "He looks as old as his father." The ruddy, masterful features were scorched and smoke-stained, and the curling fair hair was burned to the colour of singed broomsedge. Even his eyes looked burned, and one of his hands was rolled in a bandage.

She stopped abruptly and stood motionless. Though she was without definite fear, an obscure dread was beating against the wall of her consciousness. "Something has happened. Something has happened. Something has happened." Her mind seemed to have no relation to herself, to her feelings, to her beliefs, to her affections. It was only an empty shed; and the darkness of this shed was filled suddenly with the sound of swallows fluttering.