They have left here the marks of tragedy,
of pathos, or of joy. One yard has a level bit of grassless ground
between barn and pump, and you may call it a battlefield, if you will,
since famine and desire have striven there together. Or, if you choose
to read fine meanings into threadbare things, you may see in it a field
of the cloth of gold, where simple love of life and childlike pleasure
met and sparkled for no eye to see. It was a croquet ground, laid out
in the days when croquet first inundated the land, and laid out by a
woman. This was Della Smith, the mother of two grave children, and the
wife of a farmer who never learned to smile. Eben was duller than the
ox which ploughs all day long for his handful of hay at night and his
heavy slumber; but Della, though she carried her end of the yoke with a
gallant spirit, had dreams and desires forever bursting from brown
shells, only to live a moment in the air, and then, like bubbles, die.
She had a perpetual appetite for joy. When the circus came to town, she
walked miles to see the procession; and, in a dream of satisfied
delight, dropped potatoes all the afternoon, to make up. Once, a
hand-organ and monkey strayed that way, and it was she alone who
followed them; for the children were little, and all the saner
house-mothers contented themselves with leaning over the gates till the
wandering train had passed.
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