“I won’t talk any more,” he said, “but when the time comes you will see.”
She nodded: “Yes, I will see.”
“Do you think all people alike?”
“As like as ants. People are vessels which life fills and breaks, as it does trees and bees and other sorts of vessels. They play when they are little, and then they love and then they have children and then they die. Ants do the same.”
“To be sure. But I don’t deceive myself as to the scope of it.”
The crowd were returning now, and by tacit consent they arose and joined the group. Down the road they jumped a fence into a field and had to cross a little stream. “Where is our bridge?” called the boys. “We made a bridge. Someone has stolen our bridge.”
“Oh, come on,” cried Davy, “let’s jump it.” Three ran and sprang; they landed laughing and taunting the rest. Bernard sought out his beloved. “Shall I help you over?” he asked.
“No,” she said shortly, “help the girls,” and brushing past him she jumped, falling a little short and muddying a foot, but scrambling up unaided. The rest debated seeking an advantageous point. At last they found a big stone in the middle, and pulling off his shoes, Bernard waded in the creek, helping the girls across. The smallest one, large-eyed and timid, clung to his arm and let him almost carry her over.
“He does it real natural,” observed Davy, who was whisking about in the daisy field like some flashing butterfly.
They gathered daisies and laughed and sang and chattered till the sun went low. Then they gathered under a big tree and spread their lunch on the ground. And after they had eaten, the conversation lay between the sallow-faced woman and one of the older men, a clever conversation filled with quaint observations and curious sidelights. The boys sat all about the woman questioning her eagerly, but behind in the shadow of the drooping branches sat the girls, silent, unobtrusive, holding each other’s hands. Now and then the talker cast a furtive glance from Bernard’s rather withdrawn face to the faces in the shadow, and the enigmatic smile hovered and flitted over her lips.
Three years later on the anniversary of that summer day the woman sat at an upstairs window in the house on the little farm that was a reality now, the little cooperative farm where ten free men and women labored and loved. She had come with the others and done her best, but the cost of it, hard labor and merciless pain, was stamped on the face that looked from the window. She was watching Bernard’s figure as it came swinging through the orchard. Presently he came in and up the stairs. His feet went past her door, then turned back irresolutely, and a low knock followed. Her eyebrows bent together almost sternly as she answered, “Come in.”
He entered with a smile: “Can I do anything for you this morning?”
“No,” she said quietly, “you know I like my own cranky ways. I—I’d rather do things myself.” He nodded: “I know. I always get the same answer. Shall you go to the picnic? You surely will keep our foundation-day picnic?”
“Perhaps—later. And perhaps not.” There was a curious tone of repression in the words.
“Well,” he answered good-naturedly, “if you won’t let me do anything for you, I’ll have to find someone who will. Is Bella ready to go?”
“This half hour. Bella. Here is Bernard.” And Bella came in. Bella, the timid girl with the brilliant complexion and gazelle soft eyes, Bella radiant in her youth and feminine daintiness, more lovely than she had been three years before.
She gave Bernard a lunch basket to carry and a shawl and a workbag and a sun umbrella, and when they went out she clung to his arm besides. She stopped near one of their own rose bushes and told him to choose a bud for her, and she put it coquettishly in her dark hair. The woman watched them till they disappeared down the lane; he had never once looked back. Then her mouth settled in a quiet sneer and she murmured: “How long is ‘forever’? Three years.” After a while she rose and crossed to an old mirror that hung on the opposite wall. Staring at the reflection it gave back, she whispered drearily: “You are ugly, you are eaten with pain! Do you still expect the due of youth and beauty? Did you not know it all long ago?” Then something flashed in the image, something as if the features had caught fire and burned. “I will not,” she said hoarsely, her fingers clenching. “I will not surrender. Was it he I loved? It was his youth, his beauty, his life. And younger youth shall love me still, stronger life. I will not, I will not die alive.” She turned away and ran down into the yard and out into the fields. She would not go on the common highway where all went, she would find a hard way through woods and over hills, and she would come there before them and sit and wait for them where the ways met. Bareheaded, ill-dressed and careless she ran along, finding a fierce pleasure in trampling and breaking the brush that impeded her. There was the road at last, and right ahead of her an old, old man hobbling along with bent back and eyes upon the ground. Just before him was a
