1、A WHITE HERONSarah Orne Jewett I.The woods were already filled with shadows one June evening, just before eight oclock, though a bright sunset still glimmered faintly among the trunks of the trees. A little girl was driving home her cow, a plodding, dilatory, provoking creature in her behavior, but
2、a valued companion for all that. They were going away from whatever light there was, and striking deep into the woods, but their feet were familiar with the path, and it was no matter whether their eyes could see it or not. There was hardly a night the summer through when the old cow could be found
3、waiting at the pasture bars; on the contrary, it was her greatest pleasure to hide herself away among the huckleberry bushes, and though she wore a loud bell she had made the discovery that if one stood perfectly still it would not ring. So Sylvia had to hunt for her until she found her, and call Co
4、 ! Co ! with never an answering Moo, until her childish patience was quite spent. If the creature had not given good milk and plenty of it, the case would have seemed very different to her owners. Besides, Sylvia had all the time there was, and very little use to make of it. Sometimes in pleasant we
5、ather it was a consolation to look upon the cows pranks as an intelligent attempt to play hide and seek, and as the child had no playmates she lent herself to this amusement with a good deal of zest. Though this chase had been so long that the wary animal herself had given an unusual signal of her w
6、hereabouts, Sylvia had only laughed when she came upon Mistress Moolly at the swamp-side, and urged her affectionately homeward with a twig of birch leaves. The old cow was not inclined to wander farther, she even turned in the right direction for once as they left the pasture, and stepped along the
7、 road at a good pace. She was quite ready to be milked now, and seldom stopped to browse. Sylvia wondered what her grandmother would say because they were so late. It was a great while since she had left home at half-past five oclock, but everybody knew the difficulty of making this errand a short o
8、ne. Mrs. Tilley had chased the hornd torment too many summer evenings herself to blame any one else for lingering, and was only thankful as she waited that she had Sylvia, nowadays, to give such valuable assistance. The good woman suspected that Sylvia loitered occasionally on her own account; there
9、 never was such a child for straying about out-of-doors since the world was made! Everybody said that it was a good change for a little maid who had tried to grow for eight years in a crowded manufacturing town, but, as for Sylvia herself, it seemed as if she never had been alive at all before she c
10、ame to live at the farm. She thought often with wistful compassion of a wretched geranium that belonged to a town neighbor. “Afraid of folks,“ old Mrs. Tilley said to herself, with a smile, after she had made the unlikely choice of Sylvia from her daughters houseful of children, and was returning to
11、 the farm. “Afraid of folks, they said! I guess she wont be troubled no great with em up to the old place!“ When they reached the door of the lonely house and stopped to unlock it, and the cat came to purr loudly, and rub against them, a deserted pussy, indeed, but fat with young robins, Sylvia whis
12、pered that this was a beautiful place to live in, and she never should wish to go home. The companions followed the shady wood-road, the cow taking slow steps and the child very fast ones. The cow stopped long at the brook to drink, as if the pasture were not half a swamp, and Sylvia stood still and
13、 waited, letting her bare feet cool themselves in the shoal water, while the great twilight moths struck softly against her. She waded on through the brook as the cow moved away, and listened to the thrushes with a heart that beat fast with pleasure. There was a stirring in the great boughs overhead
14、. They were full of little birds and beasts that seemed to be wide awake, and going about their world, or else saying good-night to each other in sleepy twitters. Sylvia herself felt sleepy as she walked along. However, it was not much farther to the house, and the air was soft and sweet. She was no
15、t often in the woods so late as this, and it made her feel as if she were a part of the gray shadows and the moving leaves. She was just thinking how long it seemed since she first came to the farm a year ago, and wondering if everything went on in the noisy town just the same as when she was there,
16、 the thought of the great red-faced boy who used to chase and frighten her made her hurry along the path to escape from the shadow of the trees. Suddenly this little woods-girl is horror-stricken to hear a clear whistle not very far away. Not a birds-whistle, which would have a sort of friendliness,
17、 but a boys whistle, determined, and somewhat aggressive. Sylvia left the cow to whatever sad fate might await her, and stepped discreetly aside into the bushes, but she was just too late. The enemy had discovered her, and called out in a very cheerful and persuasive tone, “Halloa, little girl, how
18、far is it to the road?“ and trembling Sylvia answered almost inaudibly, “A good ways.“ She did not dare to look boldly at the tall young man, who carried a gun over his shoulder, but she came out of her bush and again followed the cow, while he walked alongside. “I have been hunting for some birds,“
19、 the stranger said kindly, “and I have lost my way, and need a friend very much. Dont be afraid,“ he added gallantly. “Speak up and tell me what your name is, and whether you think I can spend the night at your house, and go out gunning early in the morning.“ Sylvia was more alarmed than before. Wou
20、ld not her grandmother consider her much to blame? But who could have foreseen such an accident as this? It did not seem to be her fault, and she hung her head as if the stem of it were broken, but managed to answer “Sylvy,“ with much effort when her companion again asked her name. Mrs. Tilley was s
21、tanding in the doorway when the trio came into view. The cow gave a loud moo by way of explanation. “Yes, youd better speak up for yourself, you old trial! Whered she tucked herself away this time, Sylvy?“ But Sylvia kept an awed silence; she knew by instinct that her grandmother did not comprehend
22、the gravity of the situation. She must be mistaking the stranger for one of the farmer-lads of the region. The young man stood his gun beside the door, and dropped a lumpy game-bag beside it; then he bade Mrs. Tilley good-evening, and repeated his wayfarers story, and asked if he could have a nights
23、 lodging. “Put me anywhere you like,“ he said. “I must be off early in the morning, before day; but I am very hungry, indeed. You can give me some milk at any rate, thats plain.“ “Dear sakes, yes,“ responded the hostess, whose long slumbering hospitality seemed to be easily awakened. “You might fare
24、 better if you went out to the main road a mile or so, but youre welcome to what weve got. Ill milk right off, and you make yourself at home. You can sleep on husks or feathers,“ she proffered graciously. “I raised them all myself. Theres good pasturing for geese just below here towards the mash. No
25、w step round and set a plate for the gentleman, Sylvy!“ And Sylvia promptly stepped. She was glad to have something to do, and she was hungry herself. It was a surprise to find so clean and comfortable a little dwelling in this New England wilderness. The young man had known the horrors of its most
26、primitive housekeeping, and the dreary squalor of that level of society which does not rebel at the companionship of hens. This was the best thrift of an old-fashioned farmstead, though on such a small scale that it seemed like a hermitage. He listened eagerly to the old womans quaint talk, he watch
27、ed Sylvias pale face and shining gray eyes with ever growing enthusiasm, and insisted that this was the best supper he had eaten for a month, and afterward the new-made friends sat down in the door-way together while the moon came up. Soon it would be berry-time, and Sylvia was a great help at picki
28、ng. The cow was a good milker, though a plaguy thing to keep track of, the hostess gossiped frankly, adding presently that she had buried four children, so Sylvias mother, and a son (who might be dead) in California were all the children she had left. “Dan, my boy, was a great hand to go gunning,“ s
29、he explained sadly. “I never wanted for patridges or gray squerls while he was to home. Hes been a great wandrer, I expect, and hes no hand to write letters. There, I dont blame him, Id ha seen the world myself if it had been so I could. “Sylvy takes after him,“ the grandmother continued affectionat
30、ely, after a minutes pause. “There aint a foot o ground she dont know her way over, and the wild creaturs counts her one o themselves. Squerls shell tame to come an feed right out o her hands, and all sorts o birds. Last winter she got the jay-birds to bangeing here, and I believe shed a scanted her
31、self of her own meals to have plenty to throw out amongst em, if I hadnt kep watch. Anything but crows, I tell her, Im willin to help support - though Dan he had a tamed one o them that did seem to have reason same as folks. It was round here a good spell after he went away. Dan an his father they d
32、idnt hitch, - but he never held up his head agin after Dan had dared him an gone off.“ The guest did not notice this hint of family sorrows in his eager interest in something else. “So Sylvy knows all about birds, does she?“ he exclaimed, as he looked round at the little girl who sat, very demure bu
33、t increasingly sleepy, in the moonlight. “I am making a collection of birds myself. I have been at it ever since I was a boy.“ (Mrs. Tilley smiled.) “There are two or three very rare ones I have been hunting for these five years. I mean to get them on my own ground if they can be found.“ “Do you cag
34、e em up?“ asked Mrs. Tilley doubtfully, in response to this enthusiastic announcement. “Oh no, theyre stuffed and preserved, dozens and dozens of them,“ said the ornithologist, “and I have shot or snared every one myself. I caught a glimpse of a white heron a few miles from here on Saturday, and I h
35、ave followed it in this direction. They have never been found in this district at all. The little white heron, it is,“ and he turned again to look at Sylvia with the hope of discovering that the rare bird was one of her acquaintances. But Sylvia was watching a hop-toad in the narrow footpath. “You w
36、ould know the heron if you saw it,“ the stranger continued eagerly. “A queer tall white bird with soft feathers and long thin legs. And it would have a nest perhaps in the top of a high tree, made of sticks, something like a hawks nest.“ Sylvias heart gave a wild beat; she knew that strange white bi
37、rd, and had once stolen softly near where it stood in some bright green swamp grass, away over at the other side of the woods. There was an open place where the sunshine always seemed strangely yellow and hot, where tall, nodding rushes grew, and her grandmother had warned her that she might sink in
38、 the soft black mud underneath and never be heard of more. Not far beyond were the salt marshes just this side the sea itself, which Sylvia wondered and dreamed much about, but never had seen, whose great voice could sometimes be heard above the noise of the woods on stormy nights. “I cant think of
39、anything I should like so much as to find that herons nest,“ the handsome stranger was saying. “I would give ten dollars to anybody who could show it to me,“ he added desperately, “and I mean to spend my whole vacation hunting for it if need be. Perhaps it was only migrating, or had been chased out
40、of its own region by some bird of prey.“ Mrs. Tilley gave amazed attention to all this, but Sylvia still watched the toad, not divining, as she might have done at some calmer time, that the creature wished to get to its hole under the door-step, and was much hindered by the unusual spectators at tha
41、t hour of the evening. No amount of thought, that night, could decide how many wished-for treasures the ten dollars, so lightly spoken of, would buy. The next day the young sportsman hovered about the woods, and Sylvia kept him company, having lost her first fear of the friendly lad, who proved to b
42、e most kind and sympathetic. He told her many things about the birds and what they knew and where they lived and what they did with themselves. And he gave her a jack-knife, which she thought as great a treasure as if she were a desert-islander. All day long he did not once make her troubled or afra
43、id except when he brought down some unsuspecting singing creature from its bough. Sylvia would have liked him vastly better without his gun; she could not understand why he killed the very birds he seemed to like so much. But as the day waned, Sylvia still watched the young man with loving admiratio
44、n. She had never seen anybody so charming and delightful; the womans heart, asleep in the child, was vaguely thrilled by a dream of love. Some premonition of that great power stirred and swayed these young creatures who traversed the solemn woodlands with soft-footed silent care. They stopped to lis
45、ten to a birds song; they pressed forward again eagerly, parting the branches - speaking to each other rarely and in whispers; the young man going first and Sylvia following, fascinated, a few steps behind, with her gray eyes dark with excitement. She grieved because the longed-for white heron was e
46、lusive, but she did not lead the guest, she only followed, and there was no such thing as speaking first. The sound of her own unquestioned voice would have terrified her - it was hard enough to answer yes or no when there was need of that. At last evening began to fall, and they drove the cow home
47、together, and Sylvia smiled with pleasure when they came to the place where she heard the whistle and was afraid only the night before. II.Half a mile from home, at the farther edge of the woods, where the land was highest, a great pine-tree stood, the last of its generation. Whether it was left for
48、 a boundary mark, or for what reason, no one could say; the woodchoppers who had felled its mates were dead and gone long ago, and a whole forest of sturdy trees, pines and oaks and maples, had grown again. But the stately head of this old pine towered above them all and made a landmark for sea and
49、shore miles and miles away. Sylvia knew it well. She had always believed that whoever climbed to the top of it could see the ocean; and the little girl had often laid her hand on the great rough trunk and looked up wistfully at those dark boughs that the wind always stirred, no matter how hot and still the air might be below. Now she thought of the tree with a new excitement, for why, if one climbed it at break of day, could not one see all the world, and easily discover from whence the white heron flew, and mark the place
