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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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69 slopes, and had the faint woody fragrance of fresh sawdust in the sun. Through the door they heard Zeena’s voice calling out from below: “Dan’l Byrne says you better hurry up if you want him to take that trunk.” They drew apart with stricken faces. Words of resistance rushed to Ethan’s lips and died there. Mattie found her handkerchief and dried her eyes; then,bending down, she took hold of a handle of the trunk. Ethan put her aside. “You let go, Matt,” he ordered her. She answered: “It takes two to coax it round the corner”; and submitting to this argument he grasped the other handle, and together they manoeuvred the heavy trunk out to the landing. “Now let go,” he repeated; then he shouldered the trunk and carried it down the stairs and across the passage to the kitchen. Zeena, who had gone back to her seat by the stove, did not lift her head from her book as he passed. Mattie followed him out of the door and helped him to lift the trunk into the back of the sleigh. When it was in place they stood side by side on the door-step, watching Daniel Byrne plunge off behind his fidgety horse. It seemed to Ethan that his heart was bound with cords which an unseen hand was tightening with every tick of the clock. Twice he opened his lips to speak to Mattie and found no breath. At length, as she turned to re-enter the house, he laid a detaining hand on her. “I’m going to drive you over, Matt,” he whispered. She murmured back: “I think Zeena wants I should go with Jotham.” “I’m going to drive you over,” he repeated; and she went into the kitchen without answering. At dinner Ethan could not eat. If he lifted his eyes they rested on Zeena’s pinched face, and the corners of her straight lips seemed to quiver away into a smile. She ate well, declaring that the mild weather made her feel better, and pressed a second helping of beans on Jotham Powell, whose wants she generally ignored. Mattie, when the meal was over, went about her usual task of clearing the table and washing up the dishes. Zeena, after feeding the cat, had returned to her rocking-chair by the stove, and Jotham Powell, who always lingered last, reluctantly pushed back his chair and moved toward the door. On the threshold he turned back to say to Ethan: “What time’ll I come round for Mattie?” Ethan was standing near the window, mechanically filling his pipe while he watched Mattie move to and fro. He answered: “You needn’t come round; I’m going to drive her |
