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Search - Sojourner

Sojourner
Author: Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

a selection from CHAPTER I: Three crows flew low over the fresh mound in the Linden burying-ground, dark as the thoughts of the three unmourning mourners. These were the widow, Amelia Linden, and the two tall sons, Benjamin and Asahel. The funeral assembly had gone. The clomp of horses' feet and the rattle of wheels wer... more »e faint down the frozen lane. There was a pure instant of silence. Then a wind keened far off in the west, nosed across the hills and leaped into the clearing, snapping its fangs at the limbs of the oak trees. The last leaves shivered to earth and scurried like thin brown rats across the grave. Amelia turned the black veil back from her face, and walked to the carriage. She settled herself in the front seat. "Benjamin, take the reins." Asahel moved to the heads of the span of horses to unhitch them from a cedar post. He stroked the velvet muzzles and the horses nickered. He slid off the blankets, and placing them in the rear of the carriage, found his elder brother sitting stiffly with folded arms in the back of the seat. His mother's face was gray. He waited for her to move into the driver's seat. The untethered horses sidled restlessly. When young Dan lunged and Amelia did not stir, Asahel jumped clumsily into the carriage and jerked the reins. The team broke into an unseemly trot for home. The bereavement of life rather than grief for death chilled Asahel's bones. There was no sorrow among the three in the carriage for the harsh, snarling man left behind under the wings of crows, except the sorrow all men feel face to face with death, even that of a stranger dead on the turn-pike, which is an unassuageable anguish for themselves, the evidence of their own destinies. Yet this was a moment, surely, when mother and sons should draw close together, pile high the barricade, build up the fire, against the outer darkness. Instead, his mother and Benjamin were still separated by the violent quarrel he had heard late last night from his bedroom. He had not heard the words, he could not guess what they might quarrel about, but it was the first time his mother had not found her elder pleasing in her sight. Asahel had hovered for his twenty years outside her adoration, like a shy and hungry dog that skirts a lighted house, longing to be called in for a plate of food and a few caresses. Because he loved Benjamin too, he had no sense of loss for himself, was warmed when his mother's eyes lighted for his brother, and asked only to be present. Now with his father's death something had come between these two, life was hurt more cruelly. There was no longer Benjamin's bright sun with its two satellites, Amelia powerful and near, he far and futile, but three cold stones pendulous in space. The November gale caught them full at the turn into the Linden place. The time was late afternoon, but sky and landscape were as gray as though there had never been a sun and so there was no sun for setting. The house loomed large and bleak on its rise above the road. Its windowed eyes were blank. The low scudding clouds seemed to catch and tatter on the two tall brick chimneys. Asahel drove the carriage up the drive to the side and stopped. Amelia waited for Benjamin to help her down. He did not move. She stepped out then and took the graveled path to the door, her billowing black skirts flattened against her thighs.

ISBN-13: 9780910220828
ISBN-10: 0910220824
Rating:

0 stars, based on 0 rating

Publisher: Norman Berg
Book Type: Hardcover
Other Versions: Paperback
Members Wishing: 0
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

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