Courtney Ryley Cooper - "The Cross Cut"

William Bligh - "A Narrative Of The Mutiny, On Board His Majesty's Ship Bounty; And The Subsequent Voyage Of Part Of The Crew, In The Ship's Boat"

Abner Doubleday - "Chancellorsville and Gettysburg"

Grace S. Richmond - "On Christmas Day in the Morning"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

Other Main Travelled Roads

H >> Hamlin Garland >> Other Main Travelled Roads





III


Albert sank into a feverish sleep that night, with a vague perception of
four figures in the room--Maud, her mother, Hartley, and the young
doctor. When he awoke fully in the morning his head felt prodigiously
hot and heavy.

It was early dawn, and the lamp was burning brightly. Outside, a man's
feet could be heard on the squealing snow--a sound which told how still
and cold it was. A team passed with a jingle of bells.

Albert raised his head and looked about. Hartley was lying on the sofa,
rolled up in his overcoat and some extra quilts. He had lain down at
last, worn with watching. Albert felt a little weak, and fell back on
his pillow, thinking about the strange night he had passed--a night more
filled with strange happenings than the afternoon.

As the light grew in the room his mind cleared, and lifting his muscular
arm he opened and shut his hand, saying aloud, in his old boyish manner:

"I guess I'm all here."

"What's that?" called Hartley, rolling out of bed. "Did you ask for
anything?"

"Give me some water, Jim; my mouth is dry as a powder-mill."

"How yeh feelin', anyway, pardner?" said Hartley, as he brought the
water.

"First-rate, Jim; I guess I'll be all right."

"Well, I guess you'd better keep quiet."

He threw on his coat next, and went out into the kitchen, returning soon
with some hot water, with which he began to bathe his partner's face and
hands as tenderly as a woman.

"There; now I guess you're in shape f'r grub--feel any like grub?--Come
in," he called, in answer to a knock on the door.

Mrs. Welsh entered.

"How is he?" she whispered, anxiously.

"Oh, I'm all right," replied Albert.

"I'm glad to find you so much better," she said, going to his bedside.
"I've hardly slep', I was so much worried about you. Your breakfast is
ready, Mr. Hartley. I've got something special for Albert."

A few minutes later Maud entered with a platter, followed closely by her
mother.

The girl came forward timidly, but when Albert turned his eyes on her
and called, cheerily, "Good morning!" she flamed out in rosy color and
recoiled. She had expected to see him pale, dull-eyed, and with a weak
voice, but there was little to indicate invalidism in his firm greeting.
She gave place to Mrs. Welsh, who prepared his breakfast. She was
smitten dumb by his tone, and hardly dared look at him as he sat propped
up in bed.

However, though he was feeling absurdly well, there was a good deal of
bravado in his tone and manner, for he ate but little, and soon sank
back on the bed.

"I feel better when my head is low," he explained, in a faint voice.

"Can't I do something?" asked the girl, her courage reviving as she
perceived how ill and faint he really was.

"I guess you better write to his folks," said Mrs. Welsh.

"No, don't do that," he protested, opening his eyes; "it will only worry
them, and do me no good. I'll be all right in a few days. You needn't
waste your time on me; Hartley will wait on me."

"Don't mind him," said Mrs. Welsh. "I'm his mother now, and he's goin'
to do just as I tell him to--aren't you, Albert?"

He dropped his eyelids in assent, and went off into a doze. It was all
very pleasant to be thus waited upon. Hartley was devotion itself, and
the doctor removed his bandages with the care and deliberation of a man
with a moderate practice; besides, he considered Albert a personal
friend.

Hartley, after the doctor had gone, said with some hesitation:

"Well, now, pard, I _ought_ to go out and see a couple o' fellows I
promised t' meet this morning."

"All right, Jim; all right. You go right ahead on business; I'm goin' t'
sleep, anyway, and I'll be all right in a day or two."

"Well, I will; but I'll run in every hour 'r two and see if you don't
want something. You're in good hands, anyway, when I'm gone."

* * * * *

"Won't you read to me?" pleaded Albert, one afternoon, when Maud came in
with her mother to brush up the room. "It's getting rather slow business
layin' here like this."

"Shall I, mother?"

"Why, of course, Maud."

So Maud got a book, and sat down over by the stove, quite distant from
the bed, and read to him from _The Lady of the Lake_, while the mother,
like a piece of tireless machinery, moved about the house at the
never-ending succession of petty drudgeries which wear the heart and
soul out of so many wives and mothers, making life to them a pilgrimage
from stove to pantry, from pantry to cellar, and from cellar to
garret--a life that deadens and destroys, coarsens and narrows, till the
flesh and bones are warped to the expression of the wronged and cheated
soul.

Albert's selfishness was in a way excusable. He enjoyed beyond measure
the sound of the girl's soft voice and the sight of her graceful head
bent over the page. He lay, looking and listening dreamily, till the
voice and the sunlit head were lost in a deep, sweet sleep.

The girl sat with closed book, looking at his face as he slept. It was a
curious study to her, a young man--_this_ young man, asleep. His brown
lashes lay on his cheek as placid as those of a child. As she looked she
gained courage to go over softly and peer down on him. How boyish he
seemed! How little to be feared! A boy outside uttered a shout, and she
hurried away, pale and breathless. As she paused in the door and looked
back at the undisturbed sleeper, she smiled, and the pink came back into
her thin face.

Albert's superb young blood began to assert itself, and on the afternoon
of the fifth day he was able to sit in his rocking-chair before the fire
and read a little, though he professed that his eyes were not strong, in
order that Maud should read for him. This she did as often as she could
leave her other work, which was "not half often enough," the invalid
grumbled.

"More than you deserve," she found courage to say.

Hartley let nothing interfere with the book business. "You take it
easy," he repeated. "Don't you worry--your pay goes on just the same.
You're doing well right where you are. By jinks! biggest piece o' luck,"
he went on, half in earnest. "Why, I can't turn around without taking an
order--fact! Turned in a book on the livery bill, so that's all fixed.
We'll make a clear hundred dollars out o' that little bump o' yours."

"Little bump! Say, now, that's--"

"Keep it up--put it on! Don't hurry about getting well. I don't need you
to canvass, and I guess you enjoy being waited on." He ended with a sly
wink and cough.

Yes, convalescence was delicious, with Maud reading to him, bringing his
food, and singing for him; all that marred his peace was the stream of
people who came to inquire how he was getting along. The sympathy was
largely genuine, as Hartley could attest, but it bored the invalid. He
had rather be left in quiet with Walter Scott and Maud. In the light of
common day the accident was hurrying to be a dream.

At the end of a week he was quite himself again, though he still had
difficulty in wearing his hat. It was not till the second Sunday after
the accident that he appeared in the dining-room for the first time,
with a large travelling-cap concealing the suggestive bandages. He
looked pale and thin, but his eyes danced with joy.

Maud's eyes dilated with instant solicitude. The rest sprang up in
surprise, with shouts of delight, as hearty as brethren.

"Ginger! I'm glad t' see yeh!" said Troutt, so sincerely that he looked
almost winning to the boy. The rest crowded around, shaking hands.

"Oh, I'm on deck again."

Ed Brann came in a moment later with his brother, and there was a
significant little pause--a pause which grew painful till Albert turned
and saw Brann, and called out:

"Hello, Ed! How are you? Didn't know you were here."

As he held out his hand, Brann, his face purple with shame and
embarrassment, lumbered heavily across the room and took it, muttering
some poor apology.

"Hope y' don't blame me."

"Of course not--fortunes o' war. Nobody to blame; just my
carelessness.--Yes; I'll take turkey," he said to Maud, as he sank into
the seat of honor.

The rest laughed, but Brann remained standing near Albert's chair. He
had not finished yet.

"I'm mighty glad you don't lay it up against me, Lohr; an' I want to say
the doctor's bill is all right; you un'erstand, it's _all right_."

Albert looked at him a moment in surprise. He understood that this,
coming from a man like Brann, meant more than a thousand prayers from a
ready apologist. It was a terrible victory, and he was disposed to make
it as easy for his rival as he could.

"Oh, all right, Ed; only I'd calculated to cheat him out o' part of
it--I'd planned to turn in a couple o' Blaine's _Twenty Years_ on the
bill."

Hartley roared, and the rest joined in, but not even Albert perceived
all that it meant. It meant that the young savage had surrendered his
claim in favor of the man he had all but killed. The struggle had been
prodigious, but he had snatched victory out of defeat; his better nature
had conquered.

No one ever gave him credit for it; and when he went West in the spring,
people said his passion for Maud had been superficial. In truth, he had
loved the girl as sincerely as he had hated his rival. That he could
rise out of the barbaric in his love and his hate was heroic.

When Albert went to ride again, it was on melting snow, with the slowest
horse Troutt had. Maud was happier than she had been since she left
school, and fuller of color and singing. She dared not let a golden
moment pass now without hearing it ring full, and she dared not think
how short this day of happiness might be.


IV


At the end of the fifth week of their stay in Tyre a suspicion of spring
was in the wind as it swept the southern exposure of the valley. March
was drawing to a close, and there was more than a suggestion of April in
the rapidly melting snow which still lay on the hills and under the
cedars and tamaracks in the swamps. Patches of green grass, appearing on
the sunny side of the road where the snow had melted, led to predictions
of spring from the loafers beginning to sun themselves on the
salt-barrels and shoe-boxes outside the stores.

A group sitting about the blacksmith shop were discussing it.

"It's an early seedin'--now mark my words," said Troutt, as he threw his
knife into the soft ground at his feet. "The sun is crossing the line
earlier this spring than it did last."

"Yes; an' I heard a crow to-day makin' that kind of a--a spring noise
that sort o'--I d' know what--kind o' goes all through a feller."

"And there's Uncle Sweeney, an' that settles it; spring's comin' sure!"
said Troutt, pointing at an old man, much bent, hobbling down the
street. "When _he_ gits out the frogs ain't fur behind."

"We'll be gittin' on to the ground by next Monday," said Sam Dingley to
a crowd who were seated on the newly painted harrows and seeders which
Svend & Johnson had got out ready for the spring trade. "Svend &
Johnson's Agricultural Implement Depot" was on the north side of the
street, and on a spring day the yard was one of the pleasantest
loafing-places that could be imagined, especially if one wished company.

Albert wished to be alone. Something in the touch and tone of this
spring afternoon made him restless and inclined to strange thoughts. He
took his way out along the road which followed the river-bank, and in
the outskirts of the village threw himself down on a bank of grass which
the snows had protected, and which had already a tinge of green because
of its wealth of sun.

The willows had thrown out their tiny light-green flags, though their
roots were under the ice, and some of the hardwood twigs were tinged
with red. There was a faint but magical odor of uncovered earth in the
air, and the touch of the wind was like a caress from a moist, magnetic
hand.

The boy absorbed the light and heat of the sun as some wild thing might.
With his hat over his face, his hands folded on his breast, he lay as
still as a statue. He did not listen at first, he only felt; but at
length he rose on his elbow and listened. The ice cracked and fell along
the bank with a long, hollow, booming crash; a crow cawed, and a jay
answered it from the willows below. A flight of sparrows passed,
twittering innumerably. The boy shuddered with a strange, wistful
longing, and a realization of the flight of time.

He could have wept, he could have sung, but he only shuddered and lay
silent under the stress of that strange, sweet passion which quickened
his heart, deepened his eyes, and made his breath come and go with a
quivering sound. Across the dazzling blue arch of the sky the crow
flapped, sending down his prophetic, jubilant note; the breeze, as soft
and sweet as April, stirred in his hair; the hills, deep in their dusky
blue, seemed miles away; and the voices of the care-free skaters on the
melting ice of the river below came to the ear subdued to a unity with
the scene.

Suddenly a fear seized upon the boy--a horror! Life, life was passing!
Life that can be lived only once, and lost, is lost forever! Life, that
fatal gift of the Invisible Powers to man--a path, with youth and joy
and hope at its eastern gate, and despair, regret, and death at its low
western portal!

The boy caught a momentary glimpse of his real significance. "I am only
a gnat, a speck in the sun, a youth facing the millions of great and
wise and wealthy!" He leaped up in a frenzy. "Oh, I mustn't stay here! I
must get back to my studies. Life is slipping by me, and I am doing
nothing, being nothing!"

His face, as pale as death, shone with passionate resolution, and his
hands were clinched in silent vow.

But on his way back he met the jocund party of skaters going home from
the river, and with the easy shift and change of youth joined in their
ringing laughter. The weird power of the wind's voice was gone, and he
sank to the level of the unthinking boy again. However, the problem was
only put off, not solved.

That night Hartley said: "Well, pardner, we're getting 'most ready to
pull out. Someways I always get restless when these warm days begin."
This was as sentimental as Hartley ever got; or, if he ever felt more
sentiment, he concealed it carefully.

"I s'pose it must 'a' been in spring that those old chaps, on their
steeds and in their steel shirts, started out for to rescue some damsel,
hey?" he ended, with a grin. "Now, that's the way I feel--just like
striking out for, say, Oshkosh. That little piece of lofty tumbling of
yours was a big boom, and no mistake. Why, your share o' this campaign
will be a hundred and twenty dollars sure."

"More'n I've earned," replied Bert.

"No, it ain't. You've done your duty like a man. Done as much in your
way as I have. Now, if you want to try another county with me, say so.
I'll make a thousand dollars this year out o' this thing."

"I guess I'll go back to school."

"All right; I don't blame you for wanting to do that."

"I guess, with what I can earn for father, I can pull through the year.
I _must_ get back. I'm awfully obliged to you, Jim."

"That'll do on that," said Hartley, shortly; "you don't owe me anything.
We'll finish delivery to-morrow, and be ready to pull out on Friday or
Sat."

There was an acute pain in Albert's breast somewhere; he had not
analyzed his case at all, and did not now, but the idea of going
affected him strongly. It had been so pleasant, that daily return to a
lovely girlish presence.

"Yes, sir," Hartley was going on, "I'm going to just quietly leave a
book on her centre-table. I don't know as it'll interest her much, but
it'll show we appreciate the grub, and so on. By jinks! you don't seem
to realize what a worker that woman is! Up five o'clock in the
morning--By-the-way, you've been going around with the girl a good deal,
and she's introduced you to some first-rate sales; now, if you want to
leave her a little something, make it a morocco copy, and charge it to
the firm."

Albeit knew that he meant well, but he couldn't, somehow, help saying,
ironically:

"Thanks, but I guess _one_ copy of Blaine's _Twenty Years_ will be
enough in the house, especially--"

"Well, give her anything you please, and charge it up to the firm. I
don't insist on Blaine; only suggested that because--"

"I guess I can stand the expense of a present."

"I didn't say you couldn't, man! But _I_ want a hand in this thing.
Don't be so turrible keen t' snap a feller up," complained Hartley,
turning on him. "What the thunder is the matter of you, anyway? I like
the girl, and she's been good to us all round; she tended you like an
angel--"

"There, there! That's enough o' that," put in Albert, hastily. "For
God's sake, don't whang away on that string forever, as if I didn't know
it!"

Hartley stared at him as he turned away.

"Well, by jinks! What _is_ the matter o' you?"

He was too busy to dwell upon it much, but concluded his partner was
homesick.

Albert was beginning to have a vague underconsciousness of his real
feeling toward the girl, but he fought off the acknowledgment of it as
long as possible. His mind moved in a circle, coming back to the one
point ceaselessly--a dreary prospect, in which that slender girl-figure
had no place--and each time the prospect grew more intolerably blank,
and the pain in his heart more acute and throbbing.

When he faced her that night, after they had returned from a final walk
down by the river, he was as far from a solution as ever. He had avoided
all reference to their separation, and now he stood as a man might at
the parting of the ways, saying: "I will not choose; I cannot choose. I
will wait for some sign, some chance thing, to direct me."

They stood opposite each other, each feeling that there was more to be
said: the girl tender, her eyes cast down, holding her hands to the
fire; he shivering, but not with cold. He had a vague knowledge of the
vast importance of the moment, and he hesitated to speak.

"It's almost spring again, isn't it? And you've been here"--she paused
and looked up with a daring smile--"seems as if you'd been here always."

It was about half-past eight. Mrs. Welsh was setting her bread in the
kitchen; they could hear her moving about. Hartley was down-town
finishing up his business. They were almost alone in the house. Albert's
throat grew dry and his limbs trembled. His pause was ominous. The
girl's smile died away as he took a seat without looking at her.

"Well, Maud, I suppose you know--we're going away to-morrow."

"Oh, must you? But you'll come back?"

"I don't expect to--I don't see how I can. I may never see you again."

"Oh, don't say that!" cried the girl, her face as white as silver, her
clasped hands straining.

"I must go--I must!" he muttered, not daring to look upon her face.

"Oh, what can I do--_we_ do--without you! I can't bear it!"

She stopped, and sank back into a chair, her breath coming heavily from
her twitching lips, the unnoticed tears falling from her staring,
pitiful, wild, appealing eyes, her hands nervously twisting her gloves.

There was a long silence. Each was undergoing a self-revelation; each
was trying to face a future without the other.

"I must go!" he repeated, aimlessly, mechanically. "What can I do here?"

The girl's heavy breathing deepened into a wild little moaning sound,
inexpressibly pitiful, her hungry eyes fixed on his face. She gave way
first, and flung herself down upon her knees at his side, her hands
seeking his neck.

"Albert, I can't _live_ without you now! Take me with you! Don't leave
me!"

He stooped suddenly and took her in his arms, raised her, and kissed her
hair.

"I didn't mean it, Maud; I'll never leave you--never! Don't cry!"

She drew his head down and kissed his lips, then turned her face to his
breast--then joy and confidence came back to her.

"I know now what you meant," she cried, gayly, raising herself and
looking into his face; "you were trying to scare me; trying to make me
show how much I--cared for you--first!" There was a soft smile on her
lips and a tender light in her eyes. "But I don't mind it."

"I guess I didn't know myself what I meant," he answered, with a grave
smile.

When Mrs. Welsh came in, they were sitting on the sofa, talking in low
voices of their future. He was grave and subdued, while she was radiant
with love and hope. The future had no terrors for her, but the boy
unconsciously felt the gravity of life somehow deepened by the
revelation of her love.

"Why, Maud!" Mrs. Welsh exclaimed, "what are you doing?"

"Oh, mother, I'm so happy--just as happy as a bird!" she cried, rushing
into her mother's arms.

"Why, why!--what is it? You're crying, dear!"

"No, I'm not; I'm laughing--see!"

Mrs. Welsh turned her dim eyes on the girl, who shook the tears from her
lashes with the action of a bird shaking water from its wings. She
seemed to shake off her trouble at the same moment.

Mrs. Welsh understood perfectly. "I'm very glad, too, dearie," she said,
simply, looking at the young man with motherly love irradiating her worn
face. Albert went to her, and she kissed him, while the happy girl put
her arms about them both in an ecstatic hug.

"_Now_ you've got a son, mother."

"But I've lost a daughter--my first-born."

"Oh, wait till you hear our plans! He's going to settle down
here--aren't you, Albert?"

Then she went away and left the young people alone. They had a sweet,
intimate talk of an hour, full of plans and hopes and confidences, and
then he kissed his radiant love good-night, and, going into his own
room, sat down by the stove and there pondered on the change that had
come into his life.

Already he sighed with the stress of care, the press of thought, which
came upon him. The longing uneasiness of the boy had given place to
another unrest--the unrest of the man who must face the world in earnest
now, planning for food and shelter. To go back to school was out of the
question. To expect help from his father, overworked and burdened with
debt, was impossible. He must go to work, and go to work to aid _her_. A
living must be wrung from this town. All the home and all the property
Mrs. Welsh had were here, and wherever Maud went the mother must follow.

He was in the midst of his mental turmoil when Hartley came in, humming
the _Mulligan Guards_.

"In the dark, hey?"

"Completely in the dark."

"Well, light up, light up!"

"I'm trying to."

"What the deuce do you mean by that tone? What's been going on here
since my absence?"

Albert did not reply, and Hartley shuffled about after a match, lighted
the lamp, threw his coat and hat in the corner, and then said:

"Well, I've got everything straightened up. Been freezing out old
Daggett; the old skeesix has been promisin' f'r a week, and I just said,
'Old man, I'll camp right down with you here till you fork over,' and he
did. By-the-way, everybody I talked with to-day about leaving said,
'What's Lohr going to do with that girl?' I told 'em I didn't know; do
you? It seems you've been thicker'n I supposed."

"I'm going to marry her," said Albert, calmly, but his voice sounded
strained and hoarse.

"What's that?" yelled Hartley.

"Sh! don't raise the neighbors. I'm going to marry her."

"Well, by jinks! When? Say, looky here! Well, I swanny!" exclaimed
Hartley, helplessly. "When?"

"Right away; some time this summer--June, maybe."

Hartley thrust his hands into his trousers pockets, stretched out his
legs, and stared at his friend in vast amaze.

"You're givin' me guff!"

"I'm in dead earnest."

"I thought you was going through college all so fast?"

"Well, I've made up my mind it isn't any use to try," replied Albert,
listlessly.

"What y' goin' t' do here, or are y' goin' t' take the girl away with
yeh?"

"She can't leave her mother. We'll run this boarding-house for the
present. I'll try for the principalship of the school here. Raff is
going to resign, they say. If I can't get that, I'll go into a law
office. Don't worry about me."

"But why go into this so quick? Why not put it off fifteen or twenty
years?" asked Hartley, trying to get back to cheerful voice.

"What would be the use? At the end of a year I'd be just about as poor
as I am now."

"Can't y'r father step in and help you?"

"No. There are three boys and two girls, all younger than I, to be
looked out for, and he has all he can carry. Besides, _she_ needs me
right here and right now, and if I can do anything to make life easier
for her I'm going t' do it. Besides," he ended, in a peculiar tone, "we
don't feel as if we could live apart much longer."

"But, great Scott! man, you can't--"

"Now, hold on, Jim! I've thought this thing all over, and I've made up
my mind. It ain't any use to go on talking about it. What good would it
do me to go to school another year? I'd come out without a dollar, and
no more fitted for earning a living for her than I am now! And, besides
all that, I couldn't draw a free breath thinking of her workin' away
here to keep things moving, liable at any minute to break down."

Hartley gazed at him in despair, and with something like awe. It was a
tremendous transformation in the young, ambitious student.

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