The End of the World | Page 8

the sky had something to do with him. What had he
done? Nothing. His closest self-examination told him that he had done
no wrong. But his spirits were depressed, and his sensitive conscience
condemned him for some unknown crime that had brought about all
this disturbance of the elements. The ham did not seem very good, the
cabbage he could not eat, the corn-dodger choked him, he had no desire

to wait for the pie. He abridged his meal, and went out to the barn to
keep company with his horses and his misery until it should be time to
return to his plow.
Julia sat and sewed in that tedious afternoon. She would have liked one
more interview with August before his departure. Looking through the
open hall, she saw him leave the barn and go toward his plowing. Not
that she looked up. Hawk never watched chicken more closely than
Mrs. Anderson watched poor Jule. But out of the corners of her eyes
Julia saw him drive his horses before him from the stable. At the field
in which he worked was on the other side of the house from where she
sat she could not so much as catch a glimpse of him as he held his plow
on its steady course. She wished she might have helped Cynthy Ann in
the kitchen, for then she could have seen him, but there was no chance
for such a transfer.
Thus the tedious afternoon wore away, and just as the sun was settling
down so that the shadow of the elm in the front-yard stretched across
the road into the cow pasture, the dead silence was broken. Julia had
been wishing that somebody would speak. Her mother's sulky
speechlessness was worse than her scolding, and Julia had even wished
her to resume her storming. But the silence was broken by Cynthy Ann,
who came into the hall and called, "Jule, I wish you would go to the
barn and gether the eggs; I want to make some cake."
Every evening of her life Julia gathered the eggs, and there was nothing
uncommon in Cynthy Ann's making cake, so that nothing could be
more innocent than this request. Julia sat opposite the front-door, her
mother sat farther along. Julia could see the face of Cynthy Ann. Her
mother could only hear the voice, which was dry and commonplace
enough. Julia thought she detected something peculiar in Cynthy's
manner. She would as soon have thought of the big oak gate-posts with
their round ball-like heads telegraphing her in a sly way, as to have
suspected any such craft on the part of Cynthy Ann, who was a good,
pious, simple-hearted, Methodist old maid, strict with herself, and
censorious toward others. But there stood Cynthy making some sort of
gesture, which Julia took to mean that she was to go quick. She did not

dare to show any eagerness. She laid down her work, and moved away
listlessly. And evidently she had been too slow. For if August had been
in sight when Cynthy Ann called her, he had now disappeared on the
other side of the hill. She loitered along, hoping that he would come in
sight, but he did not, and then she almost smiled to think how foolish
she had been in imagining that Cynthy Ann had any interest in her love
affair. Doubtless Cynthy sided with her mother.
And so she climbed from mow to mow gathering the eggs. No place is
sweeter than a mow, no occupation can be more delightful than
gathering the fresh eggs--great glorious pearls, more beautiful than any
that men dive for, despised only because they are so common and so
useful! But Julia, gliding about noiselessly, did not think much of the
eggs, did not give much attention to the hens scratching for wheat
kernels amongst the straw, nor to the barn swallows chattering over the
adobe dwellings which they were building among the rafters above her.
She had often listened to the love-talk of these last, but now her heart
was too heavy to hear. She slid down to the edge of one of the mows,
and sat there a few feet above the threshing-floor with her bonnet in her
hand, looking off sadly and vacantly. It was pleasant to sit here alone
and think, without the feeling that her mother was penetrating her
thoughts.
A little rustle brought her to consciousness. Her face was fiery red in a
minute. There, in one corner of the threshing-floor, stood August,
gazing at her. He had come into the barn to find a single-tree in place of
one which had broken. While he was looking for it, Julia had come, and
he had stood and looked, unable to decide whether to speak or not,