april—the goose moon
it was early in april, an hour before sunset. the keen wind that blew down through the valley, sweeping the forge pond into little ripples, was tinkling with spring sounds,—wayside voices of robin, meadow-lark, purple finch, and cheery song sparrow; the red-wing’s good-night blending with the piping of the marsh frogs; music of little brooks newly born of melted ice and spring rain on the rocky hillsides; here and there the chime of cow bells worn by peter salop’s rambling herd returning from their first day’s browsing in the brush lots,—all blended into the steady rhythm of the water as it fell in an unbroken sheet from the pond’s edge upon the rocks below.
spring rushed toward the ear that evening more swiftly than to the eye. there were yellow tassels of fragrant spice-bush in moist warm hollows, echoing in tint the winter-flowering witch-hazel; wands of glistening willow outlined the waterways, and the red glow of life lay upon the swamp maples; but only the eyes of the wise might hope to find the hiding-places of the white and rathe blue hepaticas, or the nooks deep in the hemlock woods where the wax-pink arbutus distilled fragrance from the leaf mould.
as the sun slowly vanished behind the long chain of hills beyond the moosatuck, the warmth of the first spring day swiftly followed, and soon the sky was barred with the dull red-purple and citron that promised unwelcome frosts.
in all the countryside but two people were to be seen out-of-doors or in any way seemingly conscious of the evening’s beauty, and these were alien born; peter salop, the owner of the pond, mill, and forge, and ivan gronski, his hired helper. peter was english born, a portly and comfortable man of sixty odd, who, having come over in his youth, had made a little money by city trade. once upon a time he had gone home again to pick up the old life for middle-aged rest, but though the land was there, the people that made the life had vanished. now coming for the second time, he had settled in our hill country near his sons, and because he was born in a mill, a mill he must own, and, because as a boy he had loved to creep into a neighbour’s forge and watch the molten metal take shape, a forge he must have, even though its work was no more ambitious than turning scrap iron into cheap ploughs and third-grade tools.
among other traditions that he brought with him and never seemed to have lost in his forty years of city trading, was a love for the sound of cow bells, the sight of sheep grazing on the rough hillsides where they were almost indistinguishable from the rocks, the sight and smell of snowy “may” or hawthorn, big bushes of which grew in his house yard, a love of lying prone on green grass, hands behind head to watch the sky, and an intense respect for the game laws. it was this latter quality that had begun an intimacy between peter and evan, and together they had formed an alliance to put down the trapping, ferreting, and snaring among the hills, about which the country lad, native by a few generations, has no conscience.
wild geese had been flying these two weeks, and peter salop was minded that if a flock dropped to rest and feed on his pond, there should be none lacking in their onward flight. moreover, with the wild-fowl in mind, he never cut the heavy-seeded marsh grasses and sedges that grew in the pond’s backwater, and had scattered wild rice until it had become naturalized. so now peter paced up and down the highway that skirted his property on the west, hands behind back, his eyes first resting upon the pond that, here and there, glistened silver-like between the meshed alders that hedged it like coin within a knitted purse, then sweeping the road up which either the mail man or the home-coming cattle might at any time be expected.
for the moment, a flock of white geese held the right of way with half-raised wings and heads erect, forcing their master to one side; for this was before the day of heartless motor cars, when in rural regions, at least, the road belonged to the females, who drove buggies with sundry twitches of the reins as though they were pulling in fish, and to the ducks, geese, and portly hens escorting young chickens.
the other human figure in the picture was working steadily back of the cow barns, occasionally looking across the pond toward the sunset, but without once ceasing his toil of carrying hay from the stack and making ready for milking. what he thought, if he thought at all, left no trace upon his flat features, that were tanned and weathered to the deep hue of sole leather, although his long, light hair, and scant, bristling mustache, showed that originally he must have been fair of skin; his short, thick-set, yet lean body, with its long arms, worked like a machine until one would have supposed that an overseer was standing by him with a lash.
this unceasing labour was a sort of inborn habit, one of the few traditions that ivan gronski had brought with him. he never stopped to think why he worked so incessantly. peter salop would have told you that ivan worked but never thought about his work, and in this way he stood in his own light, adding, “by ’n by he’ll get to thinkin’, no doubt, and then he’ll most like not work at all.”
but peter did not know the reason. once in the years gone by, ivan had stopped when he was working, stopped to listen to what another said, that ‘if the tax to support the idle was not so heavy upon them all, there would be more time to raise the head and breathe the air, while if a time should come when there were no idle to be clad in gold and gems, they, the people, might even in work hours stand, hands upon hips, and laugh!’ then had ivan not only listened but answered, “god hasten the day,” crossing himself with one hand, while with the other he pressed the little icon, worn under his blouse, against his flesh until it left a mark.
some one had heard! swift as the bird flies the words travelled. nicholas, the man who had spoken, disappeared from among his fellows who worked in a nobleman’s field, while the man who had merely answered soon felt the dreaded spy shadow hovering over him, following him and blighting the way before.
in ivan’s hut there were five: maria the wife, zetta the eldest girl, ’tiana (short for tatiana) who crept about, and paul the baby, and over them all the spy shadow hung. some day, ivan had hoped they might all go overseas to america, where it was said that one might not only laugh, but own land and houses; perhaps this might happen when paul also could walk. but all that was before the spy shadow fell. a little money had been saved and hidden beneath the thatch, but the shadow seemed to shut a door between ivan and freedom of motion even. what day it would come in the door, he could not tell. some work horses from the estate were to go for exhibition to a neighbouring fair. when they were ready, polished and sleek, with bunches of ribbons braided in their manes and tails, the man in charge of them fell suddenly ill, and not daring to disarrange his overseer’s plans, he begged ivan to wear his new boots, blouse, and cap, and ride the horses to the fair. maria urged him to go, and overlooked the new blouse carefully,—a stitch was lacking here and there, she said,—and had he the eyes for it there was something strange both in her face and her manner of wishing him good-by.
the first night of the fair, amid some little jollity and confusion, an overseer in a village near to ivan’s pressed close to him and whispered in his ear, “michael is in siberia, i, too, am beneath the spy cloud and therefore i go away to-night; come you with me, else it will be too late, to-morrow they mean to arrest us both; keep on moving with the crowd and do not let your face change.”
“how? i cannot, i have no money, and there is maria and all. you need not think i will do that.”
“maria knows and wishes it, then she follows when you have made a place. she has sewn the money from the thatch into the blouse you wear.”
involuntarily ivan pressed his hand to his side where something had been chafing him, and there he felt the little box that held their treasure. without question maria had placed it there, maria must know more than he. so ivan gronski turned his back upon russia, hatred of his country being all that remained of it in his heart, for what other heritage is left to an honest russian pole!
three weeks later the two men reached a seaport, after arrest, hunger, and despair, all three in turn, had threatened them; another three weeks, and they stood upon american soil. the brother of ivan’s rescuer, already well established, met and vouched for both; the friend found quick haven, but ivan drifted here and there at first, working in ditches, on railways, clutching at every penny to save it for the coming of maria and the others when he had “made a place,” then losing again through sickness, hearing seldom from her, and then always through michael, the friend with whom he had come.
when working for a junk dealer in bridgeton, he had been sent one day, in company with another man, out far across country with a load of scrap iron, its destination being peter salop’s forge. while his companion bargained about the iron, ivan had watered the horses and, idle for the moment, stood looking across the pond to where a field of ripening wheat waved to and fro against the blue midsummer sky. he had never set his eyes upon a wheat field since the time when his fellow-worker, in tying sheaves, had spoken of liberty and he had answered. how long ago was that, years or only months? he could hardly tell. and what was that beyond the field edge lying low to the land almost concealed by a tall poplar—was it a peasant’s hut?
no, merely the low-built house of some early settler, the wide stone chimney and sloping attic eaves seeming lowered by the intervening hill. but a throb came into ivan’s throat and tore it, and suddenly the oppression of his race that had gripped him even in the new land like a paralysis, gave way, and long-drawn sobs swept him until he swayed and shook like the wheat in the wind.
a heavy but kindly hand was laid on his shoulder. “what’s the matter, my man?” asked the deep voice of peter salop. but before ivan hid his face in his arms, peter saw the tears and a reserve fell upon him.
“the wheat, the hut, maria, and i make no place for her,” ivan explained, piecing out his few words of english with direct gestures.
“homesick?” shouted peter; “want to go home?” making the common mistake of thinking loud tones help to interpret a strange tongue. “what are you, a polack or a slav?”
ivan understood, and a sadness deeper than tears came to him, almost giving dignity to his hunched form. “me? there is no go home for me, i am a russe!”
peter salop might be called dense upon some occasions, but not now. for a moment he too was an immigrant, and that other pond and mill, whose double he had sought in later life in a strange land, were before him.
“i need a farm man, if you’d care to stay about here,” he said presently; “to begin, twenty a month if i board you, thirty and you find yourself; more, bimeby if you fit in.”
“yeas, yeas, oh yeas,” gasped ivan, clinging only to the first proposition, which for the moment overshadowed the others.
ivan stayed; indeed, he seemed rooted to the spot, and this time was now three years past. in the working hours he only worked, but after, he schemed and planned in his little room in the horse barn about the place for maria, always with the cottage back of the grain field in his mind. now the plans had taken solid shape and this spring she would come, for did not the letter say so, the letter she had written him at christmas?—that is, if he had the money ready. this being so, had not the good friend michael arranged about the passage, and made all safe? for it is not wise for a wife to have much money in the house or write many letters, when the spy shadow has rested on the husband and he has escaped.
the cows came slowly up the road, nipping a green tuft here and there, before turning each to her particular stall. the boy who drove them, a grandson of peter’s and a namesake as well, gave a whoop of delight as the last one entered the door, and carefully taking a slender trout pole from its resting-place on a beam, he unearthed a bait box from beneath the door stone and sped off through the alders up-stream, to make the most of the hour of twilight, waving his hand to old peter as he went.
the milking over, ivan turned the cows into the yard, carried the pails up to the milk-room door, where he received his own small can, then throwing his coat about him as if it were a sleeveless cloak, and raising his head as though lifting the day’s toil from his shoulders, he strolled slowly toward the pond. the evening mail was overdue by this time, and each night he thought might there not be a letter saying when? for surely it was spring now: april the 15th said the insurance calendar on the barn door. but primitive ivan had a truer almanac in his head, made up of ice and snow, sun and wind, water, flower colours, and bird songs, though he could not call them by name; for three years this calendar had grouped itself about him and spoken to him in clearer tones than printed figures.
yes, it was spring in truth and fulness. twice the marsh frogs had piped up and been stilled again by ice; that was in march. now they had chanted for fourteen uninterrupted evenings; that meant april. also yesterday, and the day before that, the straight wild goose arrows had crossed the sky from south to the north-eastward.
the first time in his boyhood that he had seen birds resembling these, in that they looked dark against the sky, an old crone had crossed herself and muttered, “there go the birds of famine.” here in this land it was otherwise, these birds were the wise prophets, seeing spring from afar. moreover, best of all the signs, in the field above the pond, the fall wheat had raised its green ribbons far enough to flutter in the breeze that whispered as it ran, “summer, harvest, bread!”
the twilight began to deepen, and the purple bars locked the horizon against the warmer rays. a mist rose from the pond as high as ivan’s heart and chilled it. a merry little screech-owl whose quavering call belied its feelings, flapped over to its nest in an abandoned dove-cote.
suddenly the frogs began to croak, “if she shouldn’t come, suppose they do not come!”
“maybe that they are dead,” throbbed ivan’s heart, as though responding in a litany. and why not? the last letter was more than three months back; life had been hard to maria, she told of work in many places, and in peasant russia winter is a demon who travels with famine for horses and wolves for his hunting pack!
there was a harsh bird cry in the distance. far overhead, a second, nearer, clear and sonorous, then a dark arrow clove the dusk, fell swiftly, broke into feathered fragments, as with some little man?uvring and splashing, the wild-goose flock settled upon the forge pond. then the pendulum of hope swung back toward ivan. at the same time, the postman’s white-topped wagon with its sliding door stopped at the four corners. peter salop, preparatory to his evening gossip, shuffled his mail deftly in his big hands as one who had been in the haste of commercial life, at the same time giving a whistle and then calling, “hi, ivan, are you there? here’s a letter, a roosian letter,” he added, as the man came forward, half eager, half reluctant with dread. then as he saw the cramped, thin writing by the light of the carrier’s lantern, ivan’s face relaxed. no, maria was not dead, she could write her own letters to him,—a proud distinction. content with this, he put the letter inside his shirt, gave a silent good-night greeting to his employer, and balancing his little can of milk carefully, hurried along the lonetown cross-road that wound toward the north between forge and farm.
for half a mile he kept on the road that twisted and circled until he reached a crudely fashioned gate in the loosely piled stone fence; opening it, he went up a straight dirt path edged with bits of stone to the door of a small house, took a key from his pocket, and let himself in.
going into the furthest of the three rooms into which the first floor was divided, he lighted a lamp that stood on the uncovered pine table, and drawing up a stool, laid the letter before him, scanned it carefully and then jumped up again. no, he would feed the fowls first, else it would be too dark, bring in his water, fix fire and teapot, make all snug,—then for the letter. what was ivan doing in this little house, and whose house was it? his own, as well as the five acres of rough land that lay about it.
two kinds of people traverse the country nowadays, reviving the dead and dying farms: the idealists with money (more or less) in pocket, seeking to find homes on the old lines wherein to spend it; the immigrant looking for a foothold where he may wrest a living from soil whereon the native would starve.
the house, with its three rooms and loft above, was the ruin clinging about its stone chimney that ivan had spied across the corn field that summer day three years before, one of a dozen such lonely places that had fallen to the town for taxes. year after year no one had come to pay, and all had fallen away but chimney and stout oak frame.
from the moment ivan had seen its veiled outlines across the wheat field, he had desired it. at first he only thought of it, and walked around it silently on sunday afternoons. in a few months his tongue loosened to peter salop, “could the place be bought?” “yes, surely, for the price of the rough land.” so before the second summer came he owned it.
little by little—in the off season when salop could spare him—board by board had he floored it and closed it in. odd windows picked up second-hand had followed, a ladder reached the loft chamber; then came the paint, odd cans bought at an auction, bright blue with red for window-frames and door. next he made a sort of corral of birch brush woven with wild grapevines in one corner where once had been a barn. this meant a poultry-yard; four posts and some boards thereon back of the house stood for a wood-shed. the old well was cleaned out and a swinging bucket geared above it.
by the third fall, the rough land was broken up and one little corner spaded and made ready for the vegetable garden to come this spring. spaded and combed and brushed it was as for a flower-bed, this work largely done by the women, being half the secret of how the immigrant can live upon the bit of land the native scorns.
in-doors a few bits of plain furniture, some dishes, pots and pans, and a stove made home; no, one thing more, a little mongrel cur that a year before had followed ivan from the village, entered the house with him, and on being fed, refused ever after to leave the place, watching all day for his return, and sleeping either on door or hearth-stone, according to the season.
the evening work done, the fire lit and tea made, ivan broke the edge slowly from the envelope, grasping his icon and muttering a prayer as he did it. yes, maria and all were coming, also his young sister. coming? as the date read they were now on the seas and any day might bring them.
for the first time since the parting, ivan seemed to realize the meeting, lost his head, and shuffling his feet, danced with joy. hitherto he had worked always, worked at first without success; now he let himself feel as a man, which he never had done since the spy shadow came between him and the sun. then he was merely fear walking; how long ago was it? he could not seem to reckon, but what mattered it now that it was over?
lamp in hand, he strode through the three rooms and noticed for the first time how many things were lacking, that workmen in the houses on the upper road possessed. what did that matter? in two days another month’s pay would be due, and maria could go some day to bridgeton and choose for herself. all that evening he talked to himself and to the cur by turns, telling him how maria would tend the garden and zetta the poultry, and by and by, when they were old enough, ’tiana and paul would gather both fagots and berries in the big unfenced country by the ridge.
next day ivan was uneasy at his work; a pedler’s wagon passed and he followed it and bought a doll for ’tiana and a jingling toy for paul, to give them welcome. the evening mail brought him another letter, this time from the friend michael in new york. maria had landed, and, the legal formalities being over, would go by the noon train to the glen station on the morrow!
life came to ivan, and vigour; his stooping shoulders straightened, man’s blood pushed the serf’s blood through his veins. with the letter extended in his hand, he went to peter salop, his master, and telling its contents, dared to ask a half holiday that he might be at the station at noon. this was gladly granted, and he strode home on air, the doll and toy in his pocket and a ham, the gift of mrs. salop to help him make a feast, swinging over his shoulder. he put the doll and toy on either side of the little mirror on the kitchen shelf, and eating a cold supper, hurried to sleep.
a long two miles separated the glen station from the forge; a good half hour before train time, ivan reached it, clad in his best, a bit of myrtle sticking in his buttonhole. as the engine slid up to the narrow platform, he barely had the courage to raise his eyes. a woman got off, then another, and two men, but no maria, and the train went snorting on its way.
“another train from new york?” repeated the station master, busy with his trunks and packages. “oh, there’s another at four.”
for a moment ivan hesitated, and then turned back toward the forge, stripped off his bits of finery, and tried to lose himself in work. peter passing by on his way to the village for a wagon that was at the repair shop, guessed what had happened and wisely said nothing. the good-hearted never jar a brimming goblet.
he would not go too early, thought ivan, and so the second time he reached the station almost as the train pulled in. this time there were many people, chiefly for the ridge, and he pushed his way among them wildly; but when the little crowd parted and vanished, maria was not there! “six-thirty is the last train up to-night, mostly freight, not often passengers,” chirped the agent.
ivan slunk off behind the station, head down and the old stoop to his shoulders. he had eaten no dinner and his head reeled. stumbling into the general store close to the station, he bought a hunk of cheese and a small loaf, and going down the road a short way, he climbed up the wooded bank and finding some soft moss, threw himself down and whittling his bread and cheese into mouthfuls, ate from necessity rather than with relish, for all of a sudden he felt strangely and intensely weary. a little nap could do no harm, so coat under head, ivan fell soddenly asleep, like the wayfarer he had once been.
the six-thirty train came slowly into the glen station, for it was both long and heavy with freight cars, a single combination passenger and baggage car being at the very end. this same halted far below the station, where the water-tank made a barrier between the railroad ground and the open fields.
slowly four clumsy, heavy-laden figures in petticoats crawled down the high steps, assisting a little boy in curious trousers, while a good-natured brakeman helped to steady and replace the various bundles that were fastened to head and shoulders. as they huddled together, straightening their garments and belongings, the whistle blew three times shrilly, and the train creaked and moved heavily on.
is there any stillness more intense than that which closes around the countryside after the bustle of a train has ceased? the evensong of the birds and the peeping frogs only serve to deepen silence from the purely human standpoint.
the heads of the three elder women were covered by kerchiefs, the little girl was bareheaded, and the boy wore an odd cap, but all alike had an expression of fatigue and resigned anxiety. the elder woman must have been pretty once, but her face was lined and thin with toil and poor feeding, while the other woman, of twenty perhaps, was round-eyed and plump.
“where is he, maria? where is ivan my brother? he leaves us here alone in a strange place at nightfall?” she asked in her foreign tongue. “i can see no houses, it is like a green desert.”
“perhaps it is siberia, then!” said the girl of twelve, with a shiver.
“hush,” said maria, “thy father has not forgotten us in all these years, he will not now,” but nevertheless dread was creeping over her, and she raised her hands nervously to loose the band that bound the bundle to her forehead.
“i’m hungry and i want to go to sleep,” piped the little boy, and crouching toward him on the bare ground his mother strove to comfort him.
ivan slept like one dead, until a shrill whistling sound waked him with a start, and reading the time by the shadows that had not only lengthened, but were vanishing, he rolled to his feet, and half slid, half stumbled down to the road, across the head of which the evening train was moving.
pulling on his coat, he tried to run, but his feet, numb with inaction, refused to do more than walk. would he ever reach the station?
at last he felt the boards under his feet, but the long platform was empty, and the station master was setting his night light and preparing to leave. “no, there had been no passengers on the evening train,” he answered curtly, wondering if this wild-eyed man who had been there thrice in one day was a bit out of his head.
for the third time ivan was about to turn away, when something fluttering far down by the water-tank caught his eye, and as he stared the forlorn group came into view, walking slowly up the track. another moment, suspense was over, and they stood facing one another.
“maria and all.”
“ivan.”
then at last the women began to cry softly, and ivan with wet cheeks ran from one to the other, untying the burdens that bound head and throat, and that never more should choke them.
halting suddenly, ivan gasped, “but where is paul, my baby?”
then maria laughed in earnest. “this is paul, a well-grown boy; he has not been a baby these seven years. have you lost count of time, ivan, my friend?”
and truly, he had, and flushed when he thought of the little one he had expected to fondle, and the jingling toy at home, and with the knowledge came a certain tinge of disappointment.
then was the procession formed for the homeward march, ivan heaped high with the bedding; but they had gone but a few yards when a team, rumbling up from behind, came to a halt, and a jolly voice called, “hi, ivan, i think your people had better have a ride.”
turning, he saw peter salop, who was driving his ice wagon, newly painted, with white canopy, red wheels, and blue body, home from the shop.
“it is the master,” ivan whispered, and the group stood with bent heads, hardly daring to look at the magnificence.
climbing in, the children’s tongues loosened among themselves. “at home, the master flogs us with a whip, sometimes, if he meets us on the roads,” murmured ’tiana, “but here in this new country he takes us to ride in his beautiful chariot.”
once at the house, ivan and maria wandered through the rooms, hand in hand, smiling shyly, and then laughing with pleasure. as maria stopped before the little mirror to unwrap her head and set the hair-pins, ivan snatched up the jingling toy and thrust it in the mantel closet, for somehow it wounded him to think of his mistake. but maria cautioned him not to break it, saying: “it may be useful yet, who knows? ah, who knows anything?”
then leading her about the yard, her eyes rested on the sprouting wheat field and again tears filled them. “what is it that speaks, ivan, my friend?” she asked.
“something we have left behind and wish to forget,” he answered shortly.
“yes, but what we are glad to leave, we are more glad to find here before us,” and she laid her face against his, which was also wet, but smiling; and high above their heads shot a wild goose arrow.
“what is that?” asked maria, pointing.
“it is a sign of spring, and a good omen of birds,” ivan answered.
