But she disappeared
after I had asked her to explain what setting one's cap for any
one meant. I was curious because I had heard her mother say to
a neighbor that Julia was doing that to me. But the evenings were
very lonesome. The girl in our boarding-house washed dishes always
to one tune, "The Letter that Never Came." It was not a cheerful
tune and not a cheerful subject, for I had had no news from home
since I left. I can hear her yet, shrieking and clattering her
dishes, with the frogs yelling accompaniment in the creek that
mumbled in the valley. I never could abide American frogs since.
There is rest in the ko-ax, ko-ax! of its European brother, but
the breathless yi! yi! of our American frogs makes me feel always
as if I wanted to die--which I don't.
In making the clearing, I first saw an American wood-cutter swing
an axe, and the sight filled me with admiration for the man and
the axe both. It was a "double-bitter," and he a typical long-armed
and long-limbed backwoodsman. I also had learned to use the axe,
but anything like the way he swung it, first over one, then over
the other shoulder, making it tell in long, clean cuts at every
blow, I had never dreamt of.
Pages:
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59