But in the distance, away on their level and above, on other hills, they saw the town. Slowly, in twinkling nests, the lights of the town went up, and there were frost-far voices, and music, and the laughter of a girl.
“This is a nice place,” said Eugene. “You get a nice view of the town from here.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Pert. “And Old Ben’s got the nicest place of all. You get a better view right here than anywhere else. I’ve been here before in the daytime.” In a moment she went on. “Old Ben will turn into lovely flowers. Roses, I think.”
“No,” said Eugene, “dandelions—and big flowers with a lot of thorns on them.”
She stood looking about fuzzily for a moment, with the blurred gentle smile on her lips.
“It is getting dark, Mrs. Pert,” said Eugene hesitantly. “Are you out here alone?”
“Alone? I’ve got Old ’Gene and Old Ben here, haven’t I?” she said.
“Maybe we’d better go back, Mrs. Pert?” he said. “It’s going to turn cold tonight. I’ll go with you.”
“Fatty can go by herself,” she said with dignity. “Don’t worry, ’Gene. I’ll leave you alone.”
“That’s all right,” said Eugene, confused. “We both came for the same reason, I suppose.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Pert. “Who’ll be coming here this time next year, I wonder? Will Old ’Gene come back then?”
“No,” said Eugene. “No, Mrs. Pert. I shall never come here again.”
“Nor I, ’Gene,” she said. “When do you go back to school?”
“Tomorrow,” he said.
“Then Fatty will have to say goodbye,” she said reproachfully. “I’m going away too.”
“Where are you going?” he asked, surprised.
“I’m going to live with my daughter in Tennessee. You didn’t know Fatty was a grandmother, did you?” she said, with her soft blurred smile. “I’ve a little grandson two years old.”
“I’m sorry to see you go,” Eugene said.
Mrs. Pert was silent a moment, rocking vaguely upon her feet.
“What did they say was wrong with Ben?” she asked.
“He had pneumonia, Mrs. Pert,” said Eugene.
“Oh, pneumonia! That’s it!” She nodded her head wisely as if satisfied. “My husband’s a drug salesman, you know, but I never can remember all the things that people have. Pneumonia.”
She was silent again, reflecting.
“And when they shut you up in a box and put you in the ground, the way they did Old Ben, what do they call that?” she asked with a soft inquiring smile.
He did not laugh.
“They call that death, Mrs. Pert.”
“Death! Yes, that’s it,” said Mrs. Pert brightly, nodding her head in agreement. “That’s one kind, ’Gene. There are some other kinds, too. Did you know that?” She smiled at him.
“Yes,” said Eugene. “I know that, Mrs. Pert.”
She stretched out her hands suddenly to him, and clasped his cold fingers. She did not smile any more.
“Goodbye, my dear,” she said. “We both knew Ben, didn’t we? God bless you.”
Then she turned and walked away down the road, at her portly uncertain gait, and was lost in the gathering dark.
The great stars rode proudly up into heaven. And just over him, just over the town, it seemed, there was one so rich and low he could have touched it. Ben’s grave had been that day freshly sodded: there was a sharp cold smell of earth there. Eugene thought of Spring, and the poignant and wordless odor of the elvish dandelions that would be there. In the frosty dark, far-faint, there was the departing wail of a whistle.
And suddenly, as he watched the lights wink cheerfully up in the town, their warm message of the hived life of men brought to him a numb hunger for all the words and the faces. He heard the far voices and laughter. And on the distant road a powerful car, bending around the curve, cast over him for a second, over that lonely hill of the dead, its great shaft of light and life. In his numbed mind, which for days now had fumbled curiously with little things, with little things alone, as a child fumbles with blocks or with little things, a light was growing.
His mind gathered itself out of the wreckage of little things: out of all that the world had shown or taught him he could remember now only the great star above the town, and the light that had swung over the hill, and the fresh sod upon Ben’s grave, and the wind, and far sounds and music, and Mrs. Pert.
Wind pressed the boughs, the withered leaves were shaking. It was October, but the leaves were shaking. A star was shaking. A light was waking. Wind was quaking. The star was far. The night, the light. The light was bright. A chant, a song, the slow dance of the little things within him. The star over the town, the light over the hill, the sod over Ben, night over all. His mind fumbled with little things. Over us all is something. Star, night, earth, light … light … O lost! … a stone … a leaf … a door … O ghost! … a light … a song … a light … a light swings over the hill … over us all … a star shines over the town … over us all … a light.
We shall not come again. We never shall come back again. But over us all, over us all, over us all is—something.
Wind pressed the boughs; the withered leaves were shaking. It was October, but some leaves were shaking.
A light swings over the hill. (We shall not come again.) And over the town a star. (Over us all, over us all that shall not come again.) And over the day the dark. But over the darkness—what?
We shall not come again. We never shall come back again.
Over the dawn a lark. (That shall not come again.) And wind and music far. O lost! (It shall not come again.) And over your mouth the earth. O ghost! But, over the darkness—what?
Wind pressed the boughs; the
