New Hampshire Robert Frost (books you need to read TXT) đ
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- Author: Robert Frost
Book online «New Hampshire Robert Frost (books you need to read TXT) đ». Author Robert Frost
A Father-Time-like man got on and rode,
Armed with a scythe and spectacles that glowed.
He turned on will-power to increase the load
And slow me downâ âand I abruptly slowed,
Like coming to a sudden railroad station.
I changed from hand to hand in desperation.
I wondered what machine of ages gone
This represented an improvement on.
For all I knew it may have sharpened spears
And arrowheads itself. Much use for years
Had gradually worn it an oblate
Spheroid that kicked and struggled in its gait,
Appearing to return me hate for hate;
(But I forgive it now as easily
As any other boyhood enemy
Whose pride has failed to get him anywhere).
I wondered who it was the man thought groundâ â
The one who held the wheel back or the one
Who gave his life to keep it going round?
I wondered if he really thought it fair
For him to have the say when we were done.
Such were the bitter thoughts to which I turned.
Not for myself was I so much concerned.
Oh no!â âalthough, of course, I could have found
A better way to pass the afternoon
Than grinding discord out of a grindstone,
And beating insects at their gritty tune.
Nor was I for the man so much concerned.
Once when the grindstone almost jumped its bearing
It looked as if he might be badly thrown
And wounded on his blade. So far from caring,
I laughed inside, and only cranked the faster,
(It ran as if it wasnât greased but glued);
Iâd welcome any moderate disaster
That might be calculated to postpone
What evidently nothing could conclude.
The thing that made me more and more afraid
Was that weâd ground it sharp and hadnât known,
And now were only wasting precious blade.
And when he raised it dripping once and tried
The creepy edge of it with wary touch,
And viewed it over his glasses funny-eyed,
Only disinterestedly to decide
It needed a turn more, I could have cried
Wasnât there danger of a turn too much?
Mightnât we make it worse instead of better?
I was for leaving something to the whetter.
What if it wasnât all it should be? Iâd
Be satisfied if heâd be satisfied.
To drive Paul out of any lumber camp
All that was needed was to say to him,
âHow is the wife, Paul?ââ âand heâd disappear.
Some said it was because he had no wife,
And hated to be twitted on the subject.
Others because heâd come within a day
Or so of having one, and then been jilted.
Others because heâd had one once, a good one,
Whoâd run away with some one else and left him.
And others still because he had one now
He only had to be reminded ofâ â
He was all duty to her in a minute:
He had to run right off to look her up,
As if to say, âThatâs so, how is my wife?
I hope she isnât getting into mischief.â
No one was anxious to get rid of Paul.
Heâd been the hero of the mountain camps
Ever since, just to show them, he had slipped
The bark of a whole tamarack off whole,
As clean as boys do off a willow twig
To make a willow whistle on a Sunday
In April by subsiding meadow brooks.
They seemed to ask him just to see him go,
âHow is the wife, Paul?â and he always went.
He never stopped to murder anyone
Who asked the question. He just disappearedâ â
Nobody knew in what direction,
Although it wasnât usually long
Before they heard of him in some new camp,
The same Paul at the same old feats of logging.
The question everywhere was why should Paul
Object to being asked a civil questionâ â
A man you could say almost anything to
Short of a fighting word. You have the answers.
And there was one more not so fair to Paul:
That Paul had married a wife not his equal.
Paul was ashamed of her. To match a hero,
She would have had to be a heroine;
Instead of which she was some half-breed squaw.
But if the story Murphy told was true,
She wasnât anything to be ashamed of.
You know Paul could do wonders. Everyoneâs
Heard how he thrashed the horses on a load
That wouldnât budge until they simply stretched
Their rawhide harness from the load to camp.
Paul told the boss the load would be all right,
âThe sun will bring your load inââ âand it didâ â
By shrinking the rawhide to natural length.
Thatâs what is called a stretcher. But I guess
The one about his jumping soâs to land
With both his feet at once against the ceiling,
And then land safely right side up again,
Back on the floor, is fact or pretty near fact.
Well this is such a yarn. Paul sawed his wife
Out of a white-pine log. Murphy was there,
And, as you might say, saw the lady born.
Paul worked at anything in lumbering.
Heâd been hard at it taking boards away
Forâ âI forgetâ âthe last ambitious sawyer
To want to find out if he couldnât pile
The lumber on Paul till Paul begged for mercy.
Theyâd sliced the first slab off a big butt log,
And the sawyer had slammed the carriage back
To slam end on again against the saw teeth.
To judge them by the way they caught themselves
When they saw what had happened to the log,
They must have had a guilty expectation
Something was going to go with their slambanging.
Something had left a broad black streak of grease
On the new wood the whole length of the log
Except, perhaps, a foot at either end.
But when Paul put his finger in the grease,
It wasnât grease at all, but a long slot.
The log was hollow. They were sawing pine.
âFirst time I ever saw a hollow pine.
That comes of having Paul around the place.
Take it to hell for me,â the sawyer said.
Everyone had to have a look at it,
And tell Paul what he ought to do about it.
(They treated it as his.) âYou take a jack-knife,
And spread the opening, and youâve got a dug-out
All dug to go a-fishing in.â To Paul
The hollow looked too sound and clean and empty
Ever to have housed birds or beasts or bees.
There was no entrance for them to get in by.
It looked to him like some new kind of hollow
He thought heâd better take his jack-knife to.
So after work that evening he came back
And let enough light into it by cutting
To see if it was empty. He made out in there
A slender
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