Part 4 (2/2)

”Toffile, get nails.” I made him nail the door shut, And push the headboard of the bed against it.

Then we asked was there anything Up attic that we'd ever want again.

The attic was less to us than the cellar.

If the bones liked the attic, let them like it, Let them _stay_ in the attic. When they sometimes Come down the stairs at night and stand perplexed Behind the door and headboard of the bed, Brus.h.i.+ng their chalky skull with chalky fingers, With sounds like the dry rattling of a shutter, That's what I sit up in the dark to say-- To no one any more since Toffile died.

Let them stay in the attic since they went there.

I promised Toffile to be cruel to them For helping them be cruel once to him.

_The Son_ We think they had a grave down in the cellar.

_The Mother_ We know they had a grave down in the cellar.

_The Son_ We never could find out whose bones they were.

_The Mother_ Yes, we could too, son. Tell the truth for once.

They were a man's his father killed for me.

I mean a man he killed instead of me.

The least I could do was to help dig their grave.

We were about it one night in the cellar.

Son knows the story: but 'twas not for him To tell the truth, suppose the time had come.

Son looks surprised to see me end a lie We'd kept up all these years between ourselves So as to have it ready for outsiders.

But to-night I don't care enough to lie-- I don't remember why I ever cared.

Toffile, if he were here, I don't believe Could tell you why he ever cared himself....

She hadn't found the finger-bone she wanted Among the b.u.t.tons poured out in her lap.

I verified the name next morning: Toffile; The rural letter-box said Toffile Lajway.

A BROOK IN THE CITY

The farm house lingers, though averse to square With the new city street it has to wear A number in. But what about the brook That held the house as in an elbow-crook?

I ask as one who knew the brook, its strength And impulse, having dipped a finger-length And made it leap my knuckle, having tossed A flower to try its currents where they crossed.

The meadow gra.s.s could be cemented down From growing under pavements of a town; The apple trees be sent to hearth-stone flame.

Is water wood to serve a brook the same?

How else dispose of an immortal force No longer needed? Staunch it at its source With cinder loads dumped down? The brook was thrown Deep in a sewer dungeon under stone In fetid darkness still to live and run-- And all for nothing it had ever done Except forget to go in fear perhaps.

No one would know except for ancient maps That such a brook ran water. But I wonder If, from its being kept forever under, These thoughts may not have risen that so keep This new-built city from both work and sleep.

DESIGN

I found a dimpled spider, fat and white, On a white heal-all, holding up a moth Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth-- a.s.sorted characters of death and blight Mixed ready to begin the morning right, Like the ingredients of a witches' broth-- A snow-drop spider, a flower like froth, And dead wings carried like a paper kite.

What had that flower to do with being white, The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?

What brought the kindred spider to that height, Then steered the white moth thither in the night?

What but design of darkness to appal?-- If design govern in a thing so small.

CARL SANDBURG

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