The Death of the Hired Man
Mary sat musing on the
lamp-flame at the table
Waiting for Warren. When
she heard his step,
She ran on tip-toe down the
darkened passage
To meet him in the doorway
with the news
And put him on his guard.
“Silas is back.”
She pushed him outward with
her through the door
And shut it after her.
“Be kind,” she said.
She took the market things
from Warren’s arms
And set them on the porch,
then drew him down
To sit beside her on the wooden
steps.
“When was I ever anything
but kind to him?
But I’ll not have the
fellow back,” he said.
“I told him so last
haying, didn’t I?
‘If he left then,’
I said, ‘that ended it.’
What good is he? Who
else will harbour him
At his age for the little
he can do?
What help he is there’s
no depending on.
Off he goes always when I
need him most.
’He thinks he ought
to earn a little pay,
Enough at least to buy tobacco
with,
So he won’t have to
beg and be beholden.’
‘All right,’ I
say, ’I can’t afford to pay
Any fixed wages, though I
wish I could.’
‘Someone else can.’
‘Then someone else will have to.’
I shouldn’t mind his
bettering himself
If that was what it was.
You can be certain,
When he begins like that,
there’s someone at him
Trying to coax him off with
pocket-money,—
In haying time, when any help
is scarce.
In winter he comes back to
us. I’m done.”
“Sh! not so loud:
he’ll hear you,” Mary said.
“I want him to:
he’ll have to soon or late.”
“He’s worn out.
He’s asleep beside the stove.
When I came up from Rowe’s
I found him here,
Huddled against the barn-door
fast asleep,
A miserable sight, and frightening,
too—
You needn’t smile—I
didn’t recognise him—
I wasn’t looking for
him—and he’s changed.
Wait till you see.”
“Where did you say he’d
been?”
“He didn’t say.
I dragged him to the house,
And gave him tea and tried
to make him smoke.
I tried to make him talk about
his travels.
Nothing would do: he
just kept nodding off.”
“What did he say?
Did he say anything?”
“But little.”
“Anything? Mary,
confess
He said he’d come to
ditch the meadow for me.”
“Warren!”
“But did he? I
just want to know.”
“Of course he did.
What would you have him say?
Surely you wouldn’t
grudge the poor old man
Some humble way to save his
self-respect.
He added, if you really care
to know,
He meant to clear the upper
pasture, too.
That sounds like something
you have heard before?
Warren, I wish you could have
heard the way
He jumbled everything.
I stopped to look
Two or three times—he
made me feel so queer—
To see if he was talking in
his sleep.
He ran on Harold Wilson—you
remember—
The boy you had in haying
four years since.
He’s finished school,
and teaching in his college.
Silas declares you’ll
have to get him back.
He says they two will make
a team for work:
Between them they will lay
this farm as smooth!
The way he mixed that in with
other things.
He thinks young Wilson a likely
lad, though daft
On education—you
know how they fought
All through July under the
blazing sun,
Silas up on the cart to build
the load,
Harold along beside to pitch
it on.”
“Yes, I took care to
keep well out of earshot.”
“Well, those days trouble
Silas like a dream.
You wouldn’t think they
would. How some things linger!
Harold’s young college
boy’s assurance piqued him.
After so many years he still
keeps finding
Good arguments he sees he
might have used.
I sympathise. I know
just how it feels
To think of the right thing
to say too late.
Harold’s associated
in his mind with Latin.
He asked me what I thought
of Harold’s saying
He studied Latin like the
violin
Because he liked it—that
an argument!
He said he couldn’t
make the boy believe
He could find water with a
hazel prong—
Which showed how much good
school had ever done him.
He wanted to go over that.
But most of all
He thinks if he could have
another chance
To teach him how to build
a load of hay——”
“I know, that’s
Silas’ one accomplishment.
He bundles every forkful in
its place,
And tags and numbers it for
future reference,
So he can find and easily
dislodge it
In the unloading. Silas
does that well.
He takes it out in bunches
like big birds’ nests.
You never see him standing
on the hay
He’s trying to lift,
straining to lift himself.”
“He thinks if he could
teach him that, he’d be
Some good perhaps to someone
in the world.
He hates to see a boy the
fool of books.
Poor Silas, so concerned for
other folk,
And nothing to look backward
to with pride,
And nothing to look forward
to with hope,
So now and never any different.”
Part of a moon was falling
down the west,
Dragging the whole sky with
it to the hills.
Its light poured softly in
her lap. She saw
And spread her apron to it.
She put out her hand
Among the harp-like morning-glory
strings,
Taut with the dew from garden
bed to eaves,
As if she played unheard the
tenderness
That wrought on him beside
her in the night.
“Warren,” she
said, “he has come home to die:
You needn’t be afraid
he’ll leave you this time.”
“Home,” he mocked
gently.
“Yes, what else but
home?
It all depends on what you
mean by home.
Of course he’s nothing
to us, any more
Than was the hound that came
a stranger to us
Out of the woods, worn out
upon the trail.”
“Home is the place where,
when you have to go there,
They have to take you in.”
“I should have called
it
Something you somehow haven’t
to deserve.”
Warren leaned out and took
a step or two,
Picked up a little stick,
and brought it back
And broke it in his hand and
tossed it by.
“Silas has better claim
on us you think
Than on his brother?
Thirteen little miles
As the road winds would bring
him to his door.
Silas has walked that far
no doubt to-day.
Why didn’t he go there?
His brother’s rich,
A somebody—director
in the bank.”
“He never told us that.”
“We know it though.”
“I think his brother
ought to help, of course.
I’ll see to that if
there is need. He ought of right
To take him in, and might
be willing to—
He may be better than appearances.
But have some pity on Silas.
Do you think
If he’d had any pride
in claiming kin
Or anything he looked for
from his brother,
He’d keep so still about
him all this time?”
“I wonder what’s
between them.”
“I can tell you.
Silas is what he is—we
wouldn’t mind him—
But just the kind that kinsfolk
can’t abide.
He never did a thing so very
bad.
He don’t know why he
isn’t quite as good
As anyone. He won’t
be made ashamed
To please his brother, worthless
though he is.”
“I can’t think
Si ever hurt anyone.”
“No, but he hurt my
heart the way he lay
And rolled his old head on
that sharp-edged chair-back.
He wouldn’t let me put
him on the lounge.
You must go in and see what
you can do.
I made the bed up for him
there to-night.
You’ll be surprised
at him—how much he’s broken.
His working days are done;
I’m sure of it.”
“I’d not be in
a hurry to say that.”
“I haven’t been.
Go, look, see for yourself.
But, Warren, please remember
how it is:
He’s come to help you
ditch the meadow.
He has a plan. You mustn’t
laugh at him.
He may not speak of it, and
then he may.
I’ll sit and see if
that small sailing cloud
Will hit or miss the moon.”
It hit the moon.
Then there were three there,
making a dim row,
The moon, the little silver
cloud, and she.
Warren returned—too
soon, it seemed to her,
Slipped to her side, caught
up her hand and waited.
“Warren,” she
questioned.
“Dead,” was all
he answered.
