Unsolicited Writings

Still, those years with his sister, filled with labor beyond his age as they
were, had been the happiest of his life. In an almost complete isolation the two
had toiled together five years, the most impressionable of his life; and all his
affection centred on the silent, loving, always comprehending sister. His own
father and mother grew to seem far away and alien, and his sister came to be like
a part of himself. To her alone of all living souls had he spoken freely of his
passion for adventuring far from home, of the lust for wandering which devoured
his boy-soul. He was sixteen when her husband finally came back from the war, and
he had no secrets from the young matron of twenty-six, who listened with such
wide tender eyes of sympathy to his half-frantic outpourings of longing to escape
from the dark, narrow valley where his fathers had lived their dark, narrow
lives. But now, !
walking home under the frosty stars, he felt very quiet already, as though he
needed no weight to lie heavy on his restless heart. It did not seem restless now,
but very still, as though it too were dead. He noticed that the air was milder, and
as he crossed the bridge below his house he stopped and listened. Yes, the fine ear
of his experience caught a faint grinding sound. By to-morrow the river would begin
to break up. It was the end of winter. He surprised himself by his pleasure in
thinking of the spring. parenthesis-marks or hyphens, and the reader is left to
flounder through tothis helps to deceive the student. I translated a passage one
day, whichsaid that the infuriated tigress broke loose and utterly ate up
theunfortunate fir forest (Tannenwald). When I was girding up my loins todoubt
this, I found out that Tannenwald in this instance was a mans name. It was very
still in the twilight where they stood. The faint murmur of a prayer came down fro!
m above, and while it lasted both were as though held motionless by it
s mesmeric monotony. Then at the boom of the organ, the lads last shred of
self-control vanished. He burst again into muffled weary sobs, the light from the
furnace glistening redly on his streaming cheeks. It aint right, Uncle Jehiel. I
feel as though I was murderin somethin! But I cant help it. Ill go, Ill do as you
say, but -- The congregation responded in a timid inarticulate gabble, above
which rose Deacon Bradleys loud voice, -- Our soul is escaped even as a bird out of
the snare of the fowler. The snare is broken and we are escaped. He read the
responses in a slow, booming roar, at least half a sentence behind the rest, but the
minister always waited for him. As he finished, he saw the sexton standing in the
open door. A little more steam, Jehiel, he added commandingly, running the words on
to the end of the text.