Robert Frost

“ Once when the snow of the year was beginning to
fall,
We stopped by a mountain pasture to say "Whose
colt?"
A little Morgan had one forefoot on the wall,
The other curled at his breast. He dipped his head
And snorted at us. And then he had to bolt.
We heard the miniature thunder where he fled,
And we saw him, or thought we saw him, dim and
grey,
Like a shadow against the curtain of falling flakes.
"I think the little fellow's afraid of the snow.
He isn't winter-broken. It isn't play
With the little fellow at all. He's running away. ”

“ May be the thing you haven’t, yet you give it.
So false it is that what we haven’t we can’t give;
So false, that what we always say is true.
I’ll have to turn the leaf if no one else will.
It won’t lie down. Then let it stand. Who cares?”
“I shouldn’t want to hurry you, Meserve,
But if you’re going––Say you’ll stay, you know?
But let me raise this curtain on a scene,
67 And show you how it’s piling up against you.
You see the snow-white through the white of frost? ”

“ How are you fixed?"
[Pg 82]
"I've got a little, and my business gives me a living."
"It must, if you are boarding here."
"I am not. I generally eat at a restaurant, but once a week I come in here and get a good dinner. The remembrance of it lasts me a week, and makes my other meals more palatable."
"You are a sensible man."
"Is that your son, Dick?"
"No, I wish he were. He is a young friend of mine, who is for a short time under my protection. His name is Robert Frost. Don't you want a clerk in your office?"
"Well, I don't know," said Mr. Gray. ”

“ And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood,
Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it.
And from there those that lifted eyes could count
Five mountain ranges one behind the other
Under the sunset far into Vermont.
And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled,
As it ran light, or had to bear a load.
And nothing happened: day was all but done.
Call it a day, I wish they might have said
To please the boy by giving him the half hour
That a boy counts so much when saved from work. ”

“ Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust—
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the
load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are
bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground,
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun. ”

“ For such a charge, his snow upon the roof,
His icicles along the wall to keep;
And slept. The log that shifted with a jolt
Once in the stove, disturbed him and he shifted,
And eased his heavy breathing, but still slept.
One aged man—one man—can't keep a house,
A farm, a countryside, or if he can,
It's thus he does it of a winter night.
HOME BURIAL
He saw her from the bottom of the stairs
Before she saw him. She was starting down,
Looking back over her shoulder at some fear.
She took a doubtful step and then undid it
To raise herself and look again. ”

“ Frost’s apartments were gorgeous. He had made money as well as married it.
“Gentlemen,” he said to his three guests, “let me show you the first success I had,” and he pointed to a baby face on the wall.
“That study I sold for two thousand dollars to a man who had lost a child about that age, and he had no picture of it; this he fancied looked very much like her.”
“It is a marvelous face—so beautiful. Where did you get your model?” Robert asked.
[Pg 223]
“It is my own child.”
“What! I did not know you had ever been married until——” Robert paused in awkward confusion. ”

“ Playing our fancy, to have the snowline run
So high across the pane outside. There where
There is a sort of tunnel in the frost
More like a tunnel than a hole––way down
At the far end of it you see a stir
And quiver like the frayed edge of the drift
Blown in the wind. I like that––I like that.
Well, now I leave you, people.”
“Come, Meserve,
We thought you were deciding not to go––
The ways you found to say the praise of comfort
And being where you are. You want to stay.”
“I’ll own it’s cold for such a fall of snow. ”

“ But just to ask us who we think we are
Insisting always on our own way so.
She likes to halt us in our runner tracks,
And make us get down in a foot of snow
Debating what to do without an axe.
And yet she knows obstruction is in vain:
We will not be put off the final goal
We have it hidden in us to attain,
Not though we have to seize earth by the pole
And, tired of aimless circling in one place,
Steer straight off after something into space.
110
OUR SINGING STRENGTH
It snowed in spring on earth so dry and warm
The flakes could find no landing place to form. ”

“ Such things a woman should leave entirely to her husband."
"I feel I must differ with you. After Mr. Frost died I became the sole executrix of his will, and I do not know that anything has gone wrong."
"Oh, I do not say that." James Talbot paused for a moment. "Speaking of Mr. Frost," he continued. "May I ask, did he leave his estate entirely to you?"
"No, he left me my choice of one-half of all he possessed, the other half to go to Robert, or the use of everything so long as I lived, all to go to [Pg 125] Robert after my death, providing he was living at that time." ”

“ By good rights I ought not to have so much
Put on me, but there seems no other way.
Len says one steady pull more ought to do it.
He says the best way out is always through.
And I agree to that, or in so far
As that I can see no way out but through—
Leastways for me—and then they'll be convinced. ”

“ Our snow-storms as a rule
Aren’t looked on as man-killers, and although
I’d rather be the beast that sleeps the sleep
Under it all, his door sealed up and lost,
Than the man fighting it to keep above it,
Yet think of the small birds at roost and not
In nests. Shall I be counted less than they are? ”

“ There was of course nothing for Robert to do but to tell his story from beginning to end, and this he did without delay, Dick Marden in the meantime ordering the negro servant to cook a good dinner for the youth.
"Well, you outwitted Hammerditch and Le Fevre nicely," cried the miner. "I would like to have seen them at the railroad station. They must have felt cheap and no mistake."
"They are rascals, and I always knew it," said Felix Amberton. "But now we have a hold upon them, for through Robert we can show up their true characters, if it becomes necessary." ”

“ As they entered the alleyway Jim Huskin began to whistle a lively air. It was the signal for Andy Cross to draw closer.
"I always whistle when I get here," explained the sharper, glibly, as he stopped for a second. "I was born and brought up in this neighborhood, and the scene takes me back to my boyhood days."
Robert was not favorably impressed by the surroundings. On one side of the alleyway were a number of deserted tenement houses, and on the other the high brick wall surrounding a factory yard. "He must have been pretty poor to have lived in one of those shanties," thought the boy. ”

“ "He never got up high enough to see. That's why I don't advise your trying this side. He tried this side. I've always meant to go And look myself, but you know how it is: It doesn't seem so much to climb a mountain You've worked around the foot of all your life. ”

“ But there were still many adventures in store for Robert, which will be related in a companion volume to this, entitled: "Falling in with Fortune; or, The Experiences of a Young Secretary." In this book we will meet all of our old friends and some new ones, and also learn something more about James Talbot and his schemes for getting possession of the Frost fortune. ”

“ He said twice over before he knew himself:
“Can’t a man speak of his own child he’s lost?”
“Not you! Oh, where’s my hat? Oh, I don’t need it!
I must get out of here. I must get air.
I don’t know rightly whether any man can.” ”

“ Gray into a worse hole than ever," he ventured.
"Oh, I guess not. He will have you to fall back on. I doubt if he will be able to resume business immediately."
Livingston Palmer was right in the latter surmise. The next day Robert found his employer in an office on the opposite side of the street.
"I am all upset, Frost," said Mr. Gray. "The [Pg 130] safe has dropped to the bottom of the ruins and it will be a week or two before they can dig it out." ”

“ Who else is there?"
"Save us from being cornered by a woman.
Well, there's"—She told Fred afterward that in
The pause right there, she thought the dreaded word
Was coming, "God." But no, he only said
"Well, there's—the storm. That says I must go on.
That wants me as a war might if it came.
Ask any man."
He threw her that as something
To last her till he got outside the door.
He had Cole with him to the barn to see him off.
When Cole returned he found his wife still standing
Beside the table near the open book,
Not reading it.
"Well, what kind of a man
Do you call that?" ”

“ But the snow was gone A long time ago, And the body he wore Nigh gone with the snow. The fairies drew near And keenly espied A ring on his hand And a chain at his side. They knelt in the leaves And eerily played With the glittering things, And were not afraid. And when they went home To hide in their burrow, They took them along To play with to-morrow. When you came on death, Did you not come flower-guided Like the elves in the wood? ”

“ Andy Cross understood what Huskin meant, and between them the sharpers raised the boy's body up and threw him with great violence against the hard wall close at hand.
The shock landed mainly upon Robert's head, as was intended, and with a groan, the youth sank down in a heap unconscious.
"I guess he's done for," said Cross.
"He is for a while, anyway," responded Huskin. "Come, the sooner we get out of this neighborhood the better off we will be."
Running to the doorway of the tenement, both sharpers peered forth.
"A man is coming!" cried Cross. ”

“ For Charles Shotmore had clutched the sharper while they were conversing.
At that moment Robert came out of the drug store. On catching sight of Cross in the grasp of another, he paused in wonder.
"Something is wrong," he thought, and drew closer to the pair.
"I am of the opinion that you have the money order," said Charles Shotmore. "If you are an honest man you will not object to being searched."
"But I do object!" burst out Andy Cross, fiercely, and tried to wrench himself loose. He had almost succeeded when Robert came to Charles Shotmore's assistance. ”

“ I am going to the Palmer House, and will take you along with me."
"Isn't it a high-priced hotel?"
"Yes, but it will cost you nothing. You can stay with me two or three days while you are looking around for work."
"You are very kind," said Robert gratefully, "but I am a stranger to you."
"Not now. I feel as well acquainted with you as if I had known you for years. I have been poor myself, and it will go hard if Dick Marden can't take care of a boy who is looking out for a chance to make a living. Well, youngster, what do you say?" ”

“ Others taunt me with having knelt at well-curbs
Always wrong to the light, so never seeing
Deeper down in the well than where the water
Gives me back in a shining surface picture
My myself in the summer heaven, godlike
Looking out of a wreath of fern and cloud puffs.
Once, when trying with chin against a well-curb,
I discerned, as I thought, beyond the picture,
Through the picture, a something white, uncertain,
Something more of the depths—and then I lost it.
Water came to rebuke the too clear water.
One drop fell from a fern, and lo, a ripple
Shook whatever it was lay there at bottom, ”

“ 14 AN OLD MAN’S WINTER NIGHT All out of doors looked darkly in at him
Through the thin frost, almost in separate stars,
That gathers on the pane in empty rooms. ”

“ This interested Robert, who could not help but hear all that was said.
"Ze map—zat is what we want," he heard the French Canadian—for such Jean Le Fevre was—say. "Once we have zat, and the land will be ours."
"Right you are," answered the Englishman. "And then old Felix Amberton can whistle for his money. His claim won't be worth the paper it is written upon."
Robert was startled at these words. He remembered that Felix Amberton was the name of Dick Marden's uncle, the Michigan lumberman. Were these the fellows who wished to get the lumberman's lands away from him? ”

“ You will meet someone else, who will appreciate your devotion."
[Pg 104]
They heard the window opening again, and fearing a second deluge, drew quickly away.
It was just in time, for the pitcher was again emptied, but this time the water only wet the sidewalk.
"Surely you can't love her after that," said Robert.
"No. She is not what my fancy painted her. What can I do?"
"You had better let the matter drop."
"No. I will go home and write her a reproachful letter. I will make her ashamed of herself."
"Better not. She will only laugh at it." ”

“ Dick Marden's letter interested Robert greatly. The confinement of city life was beginning to tell on the boy, who had heretofore lived more or less in the open at home.
"I'd like to go to Timberville," he said to Palmer, when he showed the communication. "The smell of pine and spruce would do a fellow a world of good."
"It wouldn't suit me," said Palmer, with a decided shake of his head. "Why, you have no amusements in a place like that—no theaters, no concerts, no billiard parlors, nothing."
"And yet people get along very well without them," smiled Robert. ”

“ A Dream Pang I HAD withdrawn in forest, and my song Was swallowed up in leaves that blew alway; And to the forest edge you came one day (This was my dream) and looked and pondered long, But did not enter, though the wish was strong: You shook your pensive head as who should say, 'I dare not—too far in his footsteps stray— He must seek me would he undo the wrong. Not far, but near, I stood and saw it all Behind low boughs the trees let down outside; And the sweet pang it cost me not to call And tell you that I saw does still abide. ”