Читать книгу The Stone Field - Martha Ostenso - Страница 9

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By mid-morning a rain as fine as silk spills was weaving over the lake. Nevertheless, Ned Larkin must have his snack brought to him in the field. Jo held the coffee pail and the bag of doughnuts before her as she picked her way carefully along the narrow path among the trees. She glanced down at her knobby knees in their thick brown stockings. In a few weeks she would be able to go barefoot again, and in some way she did not look so dreadfully leggy then. Dorothy Hilyard, she knew, would have round, dimpled knees without knobs.

The sun stepped out for an instant in clear surprise. It was miraculous how the bare woods twinkled now and how the flakes of mica on the stones along the shore shone like fish scales in the light. The wind blew off the lake on a strong, straight plane and there was a whistling of wings overhead and a linked, metallic crying. Jo felt them pass over her, the straining bodies, all a-shine and racing the wind. She closed her eyes and stood for a moment quietly sensing the wild, high drift of them. Then she moved quickly toward the field’s edge, away from the lake.

The oat field lay dark and soft from the morning’s rain. Jo stepped carefully across the newly turned clods to meet the team as it swung back from the east fence. Ned drew rein sharply at sight of her and swung his short, bowed legs down from the sulky plow.

“Didn’t I tell you it was goin’ to rain today?” he said as he took the coffee pail from Jo’s hand.

She threw back her head in wrath. “You’ve been wanting it to rain!”

“It don’t matter to me what it does. I got my work to do, rain or shine. I s’pose my lady’s chaw-fer is takin’ you to the grand swa-ree! What you got in that paper bag?”

Jo was suddenly inarticulate with rage. She took a firm grip on the bag of doughnuts and hurled them with all her might at Ned Larkin’s grinning face. Then she turned and flashed away from him, bounding like a fawn over the moist furrows. Ned was after her in a twinkling. She would easily have cleared the distance to the red oak woods had her heavy brown skirt not chosen this unhappy moment to spring from its hook and tangle itself about her ankles. She fell headlong in a raging, chagrined heap. Ned was upon her at once with a roar of triumphant laughter, but she kicked out at him with wild, pink-bloomered legs.

He sat back on his heels and laughed. “A reg’lar little hell-cat you’re gettin’ to be, and no mistake!”

Then his gaze narrowed as he looked across at the girl. Her eyes were flaming, her cheeks rippling with furious color. She tugged at her skirt to hitch it up about her waist before she started to rise.

“Mad like that, you’re a right smart of a piece already!” Ned remarked soberly. “Growin’ up—that’s what, by golly! But you don’t have to be scared of your pants because of me. I changed ’em for you when they was only squares of flannel.”

Jo was on her feet at last and marching with what dignity she could muster toward the red oaks in tight, reluctant bud. She stoutly resisted a backward glance. Ned would no doubt be picking up the doughnuts and eating them, dirt and all.

The shabby bronze of last year’s few remaining leaves glistened darkly as she walked through the oak woods. There was a cautious rustle along the branches, as if the leaves knew that the rain and sun were not meant for them, the old, and their brittleness would not long withstand those purposeful thrusts. Mingled with the red oaks were clusters of white birch, standing straight and clean and naked in a look of tiptoe expectancy, their buds still fast and secret. Jo scuffed up the damp, loose mold of leaf and grass and breathed in the sad, sweet smell. This was a more achingly lovely time than any—these days between winter and full spring—because now you could not be sure that all the things that were waiting to live would ever be born, or would just drift forever in rain or sun like poor ghosts the earth hadn’t wanted. Here and there a bloodroot or a hepatica rose bravely out of the dark, rich ply of decay, but she had never been able to think of them as anything but frail spirits left by the snow. It might be long yet before the woods were studded blue with violets if you were to believe the prediction of Ned Larkin, for instance.

Suddenly, as she emerged again upon the border of the field, her eyes fell upon a torn place in the shallow ledge. She knelt and carefully drew aside the brittle fringe of last year’s weeds, and there, snugly cradled against the weather, lay five newborn rabbits. Their tiny, gray-brown bodies, not more than two inches long, were huddled closely together, their slanting eyes mere stitches in their little, old-gnome faces, their ears flat sheaths across the length of their backs. Although Jo held her breath in an effort not to startle them, a quiver of alarm seemed to pass like a bubble from one small shape to another. The little noses and cleft lips twitched apprehensively, the ridiculous ears wavered upward, ungainly and pitiful.

“Poor babies!” Jo whispered, and stepped gently back from them. Perhaps the mother was lurking somewhere near, watching with panic-strained eyes. Quietly Jo stole away. It was an omen of good luck to find rabbits on an Easter Sunday.