North of Boston Robert Frost (desktop ebook reader TXT) š
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- Author: Robert Frost
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Whatās wanted and how much and where it is.
But when Iām goneā āof course I canāt stay here:
Estelleās to take me when sheās settled down.
He and I only hinder one another.
I tell them they canāt get me through the door, though:
Iāve been built in here like a big church organ.
Weāve been here fifteen years.ā
āThatās a long time
To live together and then pull apart.
How do you see him living when youāre gone?
Two of you out will leave an empty house.ā
āI donāt just see him living many years,
Left here with nothing but the furniture.
I hate to think of the old place when weāre gone,
With the brook going by below the yard,
And no one here but hens blowing about.
If he could sell the place, but then, he canāt:
No one will ever live on it again.
Itās too run down. This is the last of it.
What I think he will do, is let things smash.
Heāll sort of swear the time away. Heās awful!
I never saw a man let family troubles
Make so much difference in his manās affairs.
Heās just dropped everything. Heās like a child.
I blame his being brought up by his mother.
Heās got hay down thatās been rained on three times.
He hoed a little yesterday for me:
I thought the growing things would do him good.
Something went wrong. I saw him throw the hoe
Sky-high with both hands. I can see it nowā ā
Come hereā āIāll show youā āin that apple tree.
Thatās no way for a man to do at his age:
Heās fifty-five, you know, if heās a day.ā
āArenāt you afraid of him? Whatās that gun for?ā
āOh, thatās been there for hawks since chicken-time.
John Hall touch me! Not if he knows his friends.
Iāll say that for him, Johnās no threatener
Like some men folk. No oneās afraid of him;
All is, heās made up his mind not to stand
What he has got to stand.ā
āWhere is Estelle?
Couldnāt one talk to her? What does she say?
You say you donāt know where she is.ā
āNor want to!
She thinks if it was bad to live with him,
It must be right to leave him.ā
āWhich is wrong!ā
āYes, but he should have married her.ā
āI know.ā
āThe strainās been too much for her all these years:
I canāt explain it any other way.
Itās different with a man, at least with John:
He knows heās kinder than the run of men.
Better than married ought to be as good
As marriedā āthatās what he has always said.
I know the way heās feltā ābut all the same!ā
āI wonder why he doesnāt marry her
And end it.ā
āToo late now: she wouldnāt have him.
Heās given her time to think of something else.
Thatās his mistake. The dear knows my interest
Has been to keep the thing from breaking up.
This is a good home: I donāt ask for better.
But when Iāve said, āWhy shouldnāt they be married,ā
Heād say, āWhy should they?ā no more words than that.ā
āAnd after all why should they? Johnās been fair
I take it. What was his was always hers.
There was no quarrel about property.ā
āReason enough, there was no property.
A friend or two as good as own the farm,
Such as it is. It isnāt worth the mortgage.ā
āI mean Estelle has always held the purse.ā
āThe rights of that are harder to get at.
I guess Estelle and I have filled the purse.
āTis we let him have money, not he us.
Johnās a bad farmer. Iām not blaming him.
Take it year in, year out, he doesnāt make much.
We came here for a home for me, you know,
Estelle to do the housework for the board
Of both of us. But look how it turns out:
She seems to have the housework, and besides,
Half of the outdoor work, though as for that,
Heād say she does it more because she likes it.
You see our pretty things are all outdoors.
Our hens and cows and pigs are always better
Than folks like us have any business with.
Farmers around twice as well off as we
Havenāt as good. They donāt go with the farm.
One thing you canāt help liking about John,
Heās fond of nice thingsā ātoo fond, some would say.
But Estelle donāt complain: sheās like him there.
She wants our hens to be the best there are.
You never saw this room before a show,
Full of lank, shivery, half-drowned birds
In separate coops, having their plumage done.
The smell of the wet feathers in the heat!
You spoke of Johnās not being safe to stay with.
You donāt know what a gentle lot we are:
We wouldnāt hurt a hen! You ought to see us
Moving a flock of hens from place to place.
Weāre not allowed to take them upside down,
All we can hold together by the legs.
Two at a timeās the rule, one on each arm,
No matter how far and how many times
We have to go.ā
āYou mean thatās Johnās idea.ā
āAnd we live up to it; or I donāt know
What childishness he wouldnāt give way to.
He manages to keep the upper hand
On his own farm. Heās boss. But as to hens:
We fence our flowers in and the hens range.
Nothingās too good for them. We say it pays.
John likes to tell the offers he has had,
Twenty for this cock, twenty-five for that.
He never takes the money. If theyāre worth
That much to sell, theyāre worth as much to keep.
Bless you, itās all expense, though. Reach me down
The little tin box on the cupboard shelf,
The upper shelf, the tin box. Thatās the one.
Iāll show you. Here you are.ā
āWhatās this?ā
āA billā ā
For fifty dollars for one Langshang cockā ā
Receipted. And the cock is in the yard.ā
āNot in a glass case, then?ā
āHeād need a tall one:
He can eat off a barrel from the ground.
Heās been in a glass case, as you may say,
The Crystal Palace, London. Heās imported.
John bought him, and we paid the bill with beadsā ā
Wampum, I call it. Mind, we donāt complain.
But you see, donāt you, we take care of him.ā
āAnd like it, too. It makes it all the worse.ā
āIt seems as if. And thatās not all: heās helpless
In ways that I can hardly tell you of.
Sometimes he gets possessed to keep accounts
To see where all the money goes so fast.
You know how men will be ridiculous.
But itās just fun the way
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