He don’t gnaw trees and posts and fences too. But everybody took it for a proof. I was a strapping girl of twenty then. The smarty someone who spoiled everything Was Arthur Amy. You know who he was. That was the way he started courting me. He never said much after we were married, But I mistrusted he was none too proud Of having interfered in the Huse business. I guess he found he got more out of me By having me a witch. Or something happened To turn him round. He got to saying things To undo what he’d done and make it right, Like, “No, she ain’t come back from kiting yet. Last night was one of her nights out. She’s kiting. She thinks when the wind makes a night of it She might as well herself.” But he liked best To let on he was plagued to death with me: If anyone had seen me coming home Over the ridgepole, ’stride of a broomstick, As often as he had in the tail of the night, He guessed they’d know what he had to put up with. Well, I showed Arthur Amy signs enough Off from the house as far as we could keep And from barn smells you can’t wash out of ploughed ground With all the rain and snow of seven years; And I don’t mean just skulls of Roger’s Rangers On Moosilauke, but woman signs to man, Only bewitched so I would last him longer. Up where the trees grow short, the mosses tall, I made him gather me wet snow berries On slippery rocks beside a waterfall. I made him do it for me in the dark. And he liked everything I made him do. I hope if he is where he sees me now He’s so far off he can’t see what I’ve come to. You _can_ come down from everything to nothing. All is, if I’d a-known when I was young And full of it, that this would be the end, It doesn’t seem as if I’d had the courage To make so free and kick up in folks’ faces. I might have, but it doesn’t seem as if. AN EMPTY THREAT I stay; But it isn’t as if There wasn’t always Hudson’s Bay And the fur trade, A small skiff And a paddle blade. I can just see my tent pegged, And me on the floor, Crosslegged, And a trapper looking in at the door With furs to sell. His name’s Joe, Alias John, And between what he doesn’t know And won’t tell About where Henry Hudson’s gone, I can’t say he’s much help; But we get on. The seal yelp On an ice cake. It’s not men by some mistake? No, There’s not a soul For a wind-break Between me and the North Pole— Except always John-Joe, My French Indian Esquimaux, And he’s off setting traps, In one himself perhaps. Give a head shake Over so much bay Thrown away In snow and mist That doesn’t exist, I was going to say, For God, man or beast’s sake, Yet does perhaps for all three.