Sojourner, The by Rawlings Marjorie Kinnan

Author:Rawlings, Marjorie Kinnan [Rawlings, Marjorie Kinnan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Novel
Publisher: Feedbooks
Published: 1953-01-05T03:00:00+00:00

Chapter 23

The afternoon in late November was brooding, making ready for the first snow. The yet unfrozen earth was gray. The winter wheat was a brave pale green before the dark of pine trees and of hemlocks. The snow-containing sky was gray, the copper streaks the color, Ase thought, of Mink Fisher's skin when he had first known the Indian. He wondered why he thought now of old Mink and then remembered. It had been at this season, with sky and earth so colored, that he had once helped his friend to begin the running of the trap lines. He longed suddenly for Mink's presence, since the fur bearing animals, after years of unmolested breeding, were back in numbers. Also, he realized, his present content was so great that it needed only Mink to complete it. The need of his brother was a steadier, more constant pain.

Ase turned his rig into the barn for unhitching, marveling at his felicity. All his crops had prospered. Severe cold had held off, so that when the impending snow should fall, his increased acreage of winter wheat would be bedded safe and soft against anything but unforeseen catastrophe. The new barn, called for by his expanding crops, had been raised, with the help of the neighbors. Nellie was allowing him to have Tim McCarthy with him for the winter.

He fingered the check in his pocket, walking in the not entirely cold air to the house. He had shipped his apples, his surplus barley and potatoes, his summer wheat, by the new freight line to a more eastern market. The returns seemed to him fabulous. They would finish paying for the new barn, they would assure Nellie of Hulda's help for a long time, they would provide as many hired hands as he might need for the coming spring and summer, for he saw how he might enlarge his money-acreage by developing his wood lot near the wintergreen bog, and turning the old northwest wood lot into other and more profitable crops. If and when Benjamin returned, he would be able to hear his brother say, "Well done."

Hulda was doing the washing in the woodshed. Her strong fair arms moved briskly up and down on the washboard. He wondered why she had not married, for all her square-faced plainness, in this country where a man needed a sturdy wife more than a handsome one. He recognized again his good fortune in Nellie, capable and busy as a mother wren, and still the prettiest woman in four townships. He wanted to say something to Hulda, to let her know that he appreciated her, beyond her wages. He cleared his throat, to bring the always difficult speech.

"Hulda, what's the matter with the men around here? Somebody's missing a good wife."

She drew a soapy hand across her face and flushed. He was surprised to see tears come into her eyes.

"Oh Mr. Linden, dot's the trouble. The one I wanted, a good-lookin' girl she got him. D'odders, all dey want is cook, clean, wash, for free.

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