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_ Alexandra did not find time to go to her neighbor's the next day, nor
the next. It was a busy season on the farm, with the corn-plowing
going on, and even Emil was in the field with a team and cultivator.
Carl went about over the farms with Alexandra in the morning, and
in the afternoon and evening they found a great deal to talk about.
Emil, for all his track practice, did not stand up under farmwork
very well, and by night he was too tired to talk or even to practise
on his cornet.
On Wednesday morning Carl got up before it was light, and stole
downstairs and out of the kitchen door just as old Ivar was making
his morning ablutions at the pump. Carl nodded to him and hurried
up the draw, past the garden, and into the pasture where the milking
cows used to be kept.
The dawn in the east looked like the light from some great fire that
was burning under the edge of the world. The color was reflected
in the globules of dew that sheathed the short gray pasture grass.
Carl walked rapidly until he came to the crest of the second hill,
where the Bergson pasture joined the one that had belonged to his
father. There he sat down and waited for the sun to rise. It was
just there that he and Alexandra used to do their milking together, he
on his side of the fence, she on hers. He could remember exactly
how she looked when she came over the close-cropped grass, her
skirts pinned up, her head bare, a bright tin pail in either hand,
and the milky light of the early morning all about her. Even as
a boy he used to feel, when he saw her coming with her free step,
her upright head and calm shoulders, that she looked as if she had
walked straight out of the morning itself. Since then, when he had
happened to see the sun come up in the country or on the water, he
had often remembered the young Swedish girl and her milking pails.
Carl sat musing until the sun leaped above the prairie, and in the
grass about him all the small creatures of day began to tune their
tiny instruments. Birds and insects without number began to chirp,
to twitter, to snap and whistle, to make all manner of fresh shrill
noises. The pasture was flooded with light; every clump of ironweed
and snow-on-the-mountain threw a long shadow, and the golden light
seemed to be rippling through the curly grass like the tide racing
in.
He crossed the fence into the pasture that was now the Shabatas' and
continued his walk toward the pond. He had not gone far, however,
when he discovered that he was not the only person abroad. In the
draw below, his gun in his hands, was Emil, advancing cautiously,
with a young woman beside him. They were moving softly, keeping
close together, and Carl knew that they expected to find ducks on
the pond. At the moment when they came in sight of the bright spot
of water, he heard a whirr of wings and the ducks shot up into the
air. There was a sharp crack from the gun, and five of the birds
fell to the ground. Emil and his companion laughed delightedly,
and Emil ran to pick them up. When he came back, dangling the
ducks by their feet, Marie held her apron and he dropped them into
it. As she stood looking down at them, her face changed. She
took up one of the birds, a rumpled ball of feathers with the blood
dripping slowly from its mouth, and looked at the live color that
still burned on its plumage.
As she let it fall, she cried in distress, "Oh, Emil, why did you?"
"I like that!" the boy exclaimed indignantly. "Why, Marie, you
asked me to come yourself."
":Yes, yes, I know," she said tearfully, "but I didn't think. I
hate to see them when they are first shot. They were having such
a good time, and we've spoiled it all for them."
Emil gave a rather sore laugh. "I should say we had! I'm not going
hunting with you any more. You're as bad as Ivar. Here, let me
take them." He snatched the ducks out of her apron.
"Don't be cross, Emil. Only--Ivar's right about wild things. They're
too happy to kill. You can tell just how they felt when they flew
up. They were scared, but they didn't really think anything could
hurt them. No, we won't do that any more."
"All right," Emil assented. "I'm sorry I made you feel bad." As
he looked down into her tearful eyes, there was a curious, sharp
young bitterness in his own.
Carl watched them as they moved slowly down the draw. They had
not seen him at all. He had not overheard much of their dialogue,
but he felt the import of it. It made him, somehow, unreasonably
mournful to find two young things abroad in the pasture in the
early morning. He decided that he needed his breakfast. _
Read next: PART II - Neighboring Fields: Chapter 6
Read previous: PART II - Neighboring Fields: Chapter 4
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