The Brimming Cup - Page 54/61

A Couple of Hours from Mr. Welles' New Life.

I

April 10.

One of the many things which surprised Mr. Welles was that he seemed to

need less sleep than in the city. Long hours in bed had been one of the

longed-for elements of the haven of rest which his retiring from the

office was to be. Especially as he had dragged himself from bed to stop

the relentless snarl of his alarm-clock, had he hoped for late morning

sleeps in his new home, when he could wake up at seven, feel himself

still heavy, unrefreshed, unready for the day, and turn on the pillow to

take another dose of oblivion.

But here, after the first ten days of almost prostrate relaxation, he

found himself waking even before the dawn, and lying awake in his bed,

waiting almost impatiently for the light to come so that he could rise

to another day. He learned all the sounds of the late night and early

morning, and how they had different voices in the dark; the faint

whisper of the maple-branches, the occasional stir and muffled chirp of

a bird, the hushed, secret murmur of the little brook which ran between

his garden and the Crittenden yard, and the distant, deeper note of the

Necronsett River as it rolled down the Ashley valley to The Notch. He

could almost tell, without opening his eyes, when the sky grew light

over the Eagle Rocks, by the way the night voices lifted, and carried

their sweet, muted notes up to a clearer, brighter singing.

When that change in the night-voices came, he sat up in bed, turning

his face from the window, for he did not want any mere partial glimpse

for his first contact with the day, and got into his clothes, moving

cautiously not to waken Vincent, who always sat up till all hours and

slept till ten. Down the stairs in his stocking-feet, his shoes in his

hand; a pause in the living-room to thread and fasten shoe-laces; and

then, his silly old heart beating fast, his hand on the door-knob. The

door slowly opened, and the garden, his own shining garden, offered

itself to him anew, so fresh in the dew and the pale gold of the

slanting morning sun-rays, that he was apt to swallow hard as he first

stepped out into it and stood still, with bare head lifted, drawing one

long breath after another.

He was seldom alone in those early hours, although the house slept

profoundly behind him; a robin, the only bird whose name he was sure of,

hopped heavily and vigorously about on the sparkling grass; a little

brown bird of whose name he had not the slightest notion, but whose

voice he knew very well by this time, poured out a continuous cascade of

quick, high, eager notes from the top of the elm; a large toad squatted

peaceably in the sun, the loose skin over its forehead throbbing

rhythmically with the life in it; and over on the steps of the

Crittendens' kitchen, the old Indian woman, as motionless as the toad,

fixed her opaque black eyes on the rising sun, while something about

her, he could never decide what, throbbed rhythmically with the life in

her. Mr. Welles had never in all his life been so aware of the rising

sun, had never so felt it like something in himself as on those mornings

when he walked in his garden and glanced over at the old Indian.