第49章

ON THE FARM.

On his way down the bluffs to town Scarborough felt as calm and peaceful as that tranquil evening.He had a sense of the end of a long strain of which he had until then been unconscious."NOWI can go away and rest," he said to himself.And at sundown he set out for his farm.

He arrived at ten o'clock, by moonlight, amid a baying of dogs so energetic that it roused every living thing in the barnyard to protest in a peevish chorus of clucking and grunting and quacking and squealing.

"What on airth!" exclaimed Mrs.Gabbard, his farmer's wife, standing at the back door, in calico skirt and big shawl.When she saw who it was, her irritated voice changed to welcome.

"Why, howdy, Mr.Scarborough! I thought it was old John Lovel among the chickens or at the granary.I might 'a' knowed he wouldn't come in the full of the moon and no clouds.""Go straight back to bed, Mrs.Gabbard, and don't mind me,"said Scarborough."I looked after my horse and don't want anything to eat.Where's Eph?""Can't you hear?" asked Mrs.Gabbard, dryly.And in the pause a lusty snore penetrated."When anything out of the way happens, I get up and nose around to see whether it's worth while to wake him."Scarborough laughed."I've come for a few days--to get some exercise," he said."But don't wake me with the others to-morrow morning.I'm away behind on sleep and dead tired."He went to bed--the rooms up-stairs in front were reserved for him and were always ready.His brain was apparently as busy and as determined not to rest as on the worst of his many bad nights during the past four months.But the thoughts were vastly different; and soon those millions of monotonous murmurings from brook and field and forest were soothing his senses.He slept soundly, with that complete relaxing of every nerve and muscle which does not come until the mind wholly yields up its despotic control and itself plunges into slumber unfathomable.

The change of the air with dawn slowly wakened him.It was only a little after five, but he felt refreshed.He got himself into farm working clothes and went down to the summer dining-room--a shed against the back of the house with three of its walls latticed.In the adjoining kitchen Mrs.Gabbard and her daughters, Sally and Bertha, were washing the breakfast dishes--Gabbard and his two sons and the three "hands" had just started for the meadows with the hay wagons.

"Good morning," said Scarborough, looking in on the three women.

They stopped work and smiled at him, and the girls dried their hands and shook hands with him--all with an absolute absence of embarrassment that, to one familiar with the awkward shyness of country people, would have told almost the whole story of Scarborough's character."I'll get you some breakfast in the dining-room," said Mrs.Gabbard.

"No--just a little--on the corner of the table out here,"replied Scarborough.

Mrs.Gabbard and Sally bustled about while he stood in the doorway of the shed, looking out into the yard and watching the hens make their careful early morning tour of the inclosure to glean whatever might be there before scattering for the day's excursions and depredations.He had not long to wait and he did not linger over what was served.

"You've et in a manner nothing," complained Mrs.Gabbard.

"I haven't earned an appetite yet," he replied."Just wait till this evening."As soon as he was out of view he gave a great shout and started to run."What folly to bother with, a foolish, trouble-breeding thinking apparatus in a world like this!" he thought, as the tremendous currents of vitality surged through him.And he vaulted a six-rail fence and ran on.Down the hollow drenched with dew, across the brook which was really wide enough to be called a creek, up the steep slope of the opposite hill at a slower pace, and he was at the edge of the meadows.The sun was clear of the horizon now, and the two wagons, piled high with hay and "poled down" to keep the loads steady, were about to move off to the barn.

"Bring back a fork for me, Bill!" he called to the driver of the nearer wagon--Bill was standing on the lofty top of his load, which projected forward and rear so far that, forward, the horses were half canopied.Against Bill's return he borrowed Gabbard's fork and helped complete the other wagon, the sweat streaming from his face as his broad shoulders swung down with the empty fork and up with a great mat of hay.

They worked alternately in the fields and at the barns until half-past eleven.Then they went into the shade at the edge of the meadow and had their dinner.

"My old woman," said Gabbard, "says that two set-down meals a day in harvest time's as many as she'll stand for.So we have dinner out here in good weather, and to the barn when it rains."The talk was of weather prospects, of probable tonnage to the acre, of the outlook for the corn, of the health and family expectations of the mares and the cows and the pigs.It died away gradually as one man after another stretched out upon his back with a bunch of hay for an odorous pillow and his broad-brimmed straw hat for a light-shade.Scarborough was the fourth man to yield; as he dozed off his hat was hiding that smile of boundless content which comes only to him who stretches his well body upon grass or soft stubble and feels the vigor of the earth steal up and through him."Why don't I do this oftener?" Scarborough was saying to himself."I must--and Ishall, now that my mind's more at ease."