The Home Road
By Elia W. PeattieOriginally published in the Youth's Companion August 26, 1915: 429-30
Prairie, prairie, prairie as far as the eye could see. No floor could be more level or more treeless. A month ago it had been green, but now the grain had been gathered, and the denuded fields, which were only little patches in the vast stretches of yet unbroken plain, were tawny gold in hue. The sky was blurred with dust, the silence absolute. No bird sang, for birds do not come where there are neither trees nor water. The little sod house of one room with its door facing the east stood out like a wart on the unlovely face of the earth.
Out of the door of the hut came a woman and two children. The boy was ten years old, the girl seven, the woman no more than thirty; but although she was so young, her face was tanned to the hue of leather and her eyes were sun-faded and wind-stung; yet her lips were tender, her smile gentle, and her faded hair rippled back from a broad and lovely brow.
"It's time to play, mother," said the girl. "You said you would play when the shadow lay in front of the house."
"Of course I'll play now, dear. Don't I play with you every day?"
"Some days are most like two days. Are days as long everywhere as they are here?"
They walked toward a broken-down cart that stood before their door. The wheels held, and the thills were still attached to the body of the vehicle, but the seat sagged and the floor was half gone.
"What game shall it be today? The same one?" The same one?" The mother seemed to be hoping that the children would say yes.
"The same one," the boy answered. "There's no game like the home-road game, mother, is there?"
"The hills are turned the wrong way," said the mother. "They must be turned toward the east if we are ever to reach home."
"I'll turn them—I can do it alone. You let me do it, mother."
Ann Bliss stood aside for her son to wheel the cart round; she let him assist her to the seat and she reached down to help her little daughter up beside her.
"You in the middle, mother," said Jim.
"No, no. I'll drive better sitting at the right, won't I?"
They played the game very seriously.
"It's a long way for one horse to carry us," continued Mrs. Bliss, "but we've a pretty good horse."
"And plenty of feed for him in the sacks!" cried Jim.
"Oh, plenty! Of course we'll water him very often."
"Hurry up, mother!" broke in Hallie, eager to be done with the preliminaries. "Can't we start now?"
"We're off!" cried Mrs. Bliss. "Hurrah!"
"Hurrah!" cried the children. Hallie clapped her hands. They all laughed together softly, breaking that solemn silence of the plain.
"We're off," repeated Ann Bliss more gravely, "and here we go over the prairie. It's flat and it's hot, but we keep driving and driving, because we know that by and by we shall be coming to the home road. Once in a great while we reach a cabin, and then we call to the people and they come out and ask us to spend the night with them. They are very kind, and give us something of all that they have. They have boys and girls, and we play with them, and when we go on the next morning, we hate to leave them, because they have become our friends; but we can't stop long—"
"We have to keep going on!" cried Jim.
"'Cause we're going home!"
"We're going home," said Jim's mother. "Though two of us have not seen home at all, yet we all know perfectly what it is like. So we keep driving and driving. After a while we come to some rivers, and we drive through them, for they are shallow and broad. We love to hear the water singing, and we are glad there are trees growing beside the rivers. We can hear the leaves rustling, and when there is no house to take us in we lie all night underneath the trees. Then in the morning we build a little fire and cook our food. After that we go on again."
"We keep going on and on, don't we?" asked Hallie.
"On and on, and because we are driving with only one horse, it takes us weeks; but at last we come to the biggest river of all, with hills beyond it, and when we have crossed the hills we know we are getting toward home. Jim keeps asking me how I know the home road, and Hallie keeps asking me, and I say, 'When you see a house with vine-covered gables standing where three roads meet, then you must take the road that runs straight east, and that will be the home road.'"
"I'll take that road," said Jim. "You couldn't fool me about that road. It's in the middle like, isn't it?"
"It runs east, Jim, and there are trees all along the way. The Ealings have willows along their farm, and the Wilcoxes have poplars, but we have elms."
"What is an elm like, mother? Is it better than a willow or a poplar?"
"It is a big tree, like a plume, and so strong that it seems to be a friend. It does not sing so loud as the poplar, and it is not so beautiful as the willow in the spring, but, after all, it is the best of the three."
"Is an elm as tall as our house?" asked Hallie.
"Oh, it is many times taller than our house! It is a beautiful green. If only you had seen any sort of tree at all I could make you understand better what it is like; but never to have seen a tree—"
The woman broke off her story. For a moment she sat staring before her at that relentless plain. The distance melted into sallow dust; the arching sky was drab with it.
She spoke almost as if talking in a dream.
"We go on beneath the elms. There are blackberry bushes growing beside the road, and sweet clover is everywhere. You can see the corn tossing and rippling like the sea, and hear the birds. The robin sings and the meadow lark whistles. Best of all, you can hear children calling to one another, and the roll of wheels along the road. Women are laughing, and men are talking to their horses and whistling to their dogs. The air is full of sounds. There is a spring in the bank just as you turn in at the wagon gate, and you can hear that whispering. In the night, now, I often hear it whispering."
Her lips were dry, and the children heard a little catch in her throat. Jim drew closer to her.
"Don't talk about 'now,' mother. Please!"
"No," she said, "I'll not talk about 'now.' I'll talk about the time to come, when we are turning in at the wagon gate. We are there, you see. Jim has opened the gate for us, and we are driving through. The Persian lilacs are so high that we can't see the lower story of the house at first."
"Only the upper story," broke in Jim. "Five windows all in a row."
"With the sun shining on them—"
"Making them gold!" cried Hallie.
"And vines are climbing round them, and inside white curtains are fluttering. We go on round the little turn and then we get past the lilacs. We can see the goldenglow and the hollyhocks, and then the lower story of the house. There is the porch, and through the open door we can look down the wide hall. It is all green in the hall—the walls are green, the floor is covered with green carpeting. A tall clock stands opposite the fireplace. No one is in the hall, and we go in as quietly as we can, to surprise grandmother. Hallie wants to stop at the doors of the different rooms. I try to drag her on, but I can't keep her from taking a look at the parlor, where the chairs are with the carved swans' heads. Jim can see the goldfish swimming in the globe in the dining room, but I'll not let him stop. I take him on down the hall, and we all come out on the rear porch, which is even pleasanter than the front one. There are crimson creeper roses on the trellis, and the old splint-bottomed chairs have cushions in them. There is a hammock and a swinging couch, and a table with grandmother's workbasket on it. At first we can see no one, and just as we are about to call out, a woman comes toward us from the garden."
"Grandmother," whispered Hallie.
"She is tall, and her hair shines like silver. She wears a white dress, and she carries a basket of flowers. She is singing softly, and her voice is like sad, soft bells, and that makes us all know that she is thinking of us—of her daughter who left her home twelve years ago, and whom she has not seen since, and of her grandchildren, whom she has never seen at all."
"Then," broke in Jim softly, "she looks up—"
"She looks up," added his mother, "and—"
"Sees us," said Hallie.
"She sees us, and at first she stands still—she is so puzzled to find strangers waiting on her doorstep smiling at her like that. Then a beautiful light comes into her face. Though you two are so big, though I have turned so brown and ugly—"
"No, you haven't, mother!" cried both children.
"She knows us. She drops her flowers. They fall on the white path. Then she puts out her arms, and we go down the steps to her."
"I jump down all of them at once," declared Jim.
"I put you first, because I love you so," resumed Ann Bliss. "I let my boy and girl go to her first, although now that I see my mother, I, too, feel like a little girl. Then we are all in her arms. They are soft and white,—her hands are like snow,—and she leads all of us into her arms. We go to her sitting room, and she takes off our hats, and we sit down before her. None of us can talk, though we have a thousand things to say. Then—I think—it begins to rain a little, very softly; not a fierce, terrible storm such as we have here. No, the rain falls like music on the trees and the flowers, and the birds sing sweeter than ever. And we are a rest—we are at the end of Home Road."
The three were silent for a long time. The sun, which had been well into the west when they left the cabin, began to plunge from sight. A chill crept over the plain.
"It is almost the last of our hot days," said the mother. "Back home we should have called this Indian summer. In a little while the cold winds will be blowing. Before we realize it, the winter will be here."
"They will be having beautiful fires in the fireplace in the wide hall back at home, won't they?" asked Jim.
"Yes, wonderful fires of wood. There will be apples and nuts to eat in the evenings—"
"Oh," cried Hallie, "is that father?"
Some tiny black creatures were crawling along the unmarked road that led to town. They were horses—almost certainly the horses of James Bliss, since other persons seldom came that way.
"It must be father," said Ann Bliss. "Come, we'll have his supper ready for him."
"I'll turn the thills of the cart again, mother. He wouldn't like to know we'd been playing the home-road game, would he?"
"It would make him feel sad, son. It is foolish of us to play it, I suppose. You'll be drawing the water, won't you, Jim? Come, Hallie, you may set the table. I have the supper to get. We must have everything ready for your father when he comes in; remember, he has been driving forty miles in this dust. It's not quite dark yet, but I think I'll light the lamp now and put it in the window. He likes to see it, even if it's not needed. It cheers him up when he's tired to know that we're still thinking of him."
"He wouldn't need cheering up so much if he could hear voices on the road, would he, mother? Or if there were other wagons passing him, the way there would be on the home road?"
Ann Bliss did not reply. She had let her mind carry her beyond the dreams that can put into words into the dreams that are wordless; but as she dreamed, she worked.
Presently they heard the wagon. Jim and Hallie ran out with a shout. Ann Bliss heard their father's voice answering them; heard them unhitching the horses from the wagon; heard the horses being watered at the well; heard Jim running with them to the corral.
The door opened and James Bliss entered. He was only a little taller than his wife; a man with more force than grace, who yet carried his head well above his broad shoulders. His face, his hair, his clothes were covered with dust; but his blue eyes were as fresh and clear as pools.
"Ann," he said. It was his brief salutation—his form of caress.
"Safe home?" said she, smiling. The wistfulness had not left her, but she was a little shamefaced before this man who lived in his "now," as Jim had called it. She knew he would not have chosen to have her entertain the children with visions that made her homesick.
"Is this fresh water, Ann?"
She nodded.
"Jim drew it for you, James."
He drank a glass. Then he filled the glass again and drank more slowly.
"Such a well, Ann! I've had many drinks of water since I left home, but not one of them touched the spot. That's what I said to the neighbors, 'You ought to have a drink from our well.' I went to see about a windmill while I was in town, and I've decided now that we can afford to put one in. By spring we'll have it running. Then we'll irrigate in a small way. You can have your garden, Ann."
"O James, do you think it will grow?"
"Do I think it will grow? It will grow like a miracle. The trouble will be to keep it from growing. Supper ready?"
He stepped to the door and called the children. They came in with their arms full of things that they had taken from the wagon—cans and boxes of food, small sacks and bundles. While he was emptying Hallie's arms for the second time, Jim came running in with a long package in his arms.
"Oh, those weren't to come in, son," said James Bliss. "They're much better outdoors where it's cool. In the morning we can see to them."
"But what are they, father?"
"Little trees, Jim—elms."
"Elms!" Ann Bliss let drop the word. The children were very still. "One might have never seen trees, James," said Ann, softly. "Will you undo the bundle?"
The man tore off the gunny sacking and the children looked at the saplings. "These are not nearly so large as the house, mother!" cried Hallie, in anguished reproach. "Are these really elms?"
"Poor child!" murmured the man. There were tears in his eyes. There was much that went on in that house that he did not quite understand—that, perhaps, he did not choose to understand; but he comprehended this.
"But they will grow to be much taller than this house, Hallie," he said gently. "They will have many great branches, and all summer they will give us shade. Then the birds will come here, and other little creatures—squirrels, perhaps. I will send for some squirrels. They are almost as good as children, they are so playful."
"Supper is ready," said Ann. Her voice was toneless, like that of one who dares not betray her thought. They ate in silence, for dreams had gained the mastery over them all; but the woman knew, and the children knew, that it was the man who had brought their dreams into their "now."
After the supper dishes were cleared away, the children and the weary man went to their beds. Ann Bliss sat sewing for a time by the lamp. Then, when she was sure that all were sleeping, she went out, drew up pail after pail of water from the well, and drenched the young trees with it. She piled more wet earth about their roots. Then she walked up and down on the trampled, hard earth before her sod cabin.
The arching vault of heaven, cloudless and as deep in color as the ocean, was glorious with stars. Beneath its splendor she felt her soul grow. New visions came to her—visions of flowers in the desert, of trees along the unmarked road, of the homes of happy men in the grim solitude where her man was now fighting his battle alone. The service of the pioneer to man was revealed to her, for that one hour, as the highest of all services. She walked with her head lifted high, contemplating the stars that offered their magnificence, not for the future, but for the present.
Suddenly, half laughing, she ran toward the broken-down cart in which she and the children played their "home-road" game. She dragged it after her to the rear of the house. An axe lay there. She lifted it, and shattered first one thill and then the other. She broke in the floor, and knocked off the rickety seat. Never again could they sit in it, with their gaze strained eastward.
She was still laughing—or weeping—she could not be sure which; but she was happy. At last she knew herself as the fit mate of a pioneer, the full mother of children who would use their "now" to create comfort and beauty in what had seemed to her until then no more than a disconsolate wilderness.
August 26, 1915, 429—430XML: ep.ss.0008.xml
