The Americans Part 50

My heart rose up and I--I simply said That Harry had heard a sighing from the walls.

I told him so much, for it's worried me.

And he at once----

MRS. ORR.

(_With spirit_)

I know. 'The pines!'

MRS. EGERTON.

'The pines!'

MRS. ORR.

I knew it!

MRS. EGERTON.

'The pines!' And walked the floor and laughed; And such a heart-free laugh I have not heard In twenty years. 'The pines!'

MRS. ORR.

'The pines!' Of course.

MRS. EGERTON.

Feeling----

MRS. ORR.

Yes, yes!

MRS. EGERTON.

He had caught the very soul Of the forest.

MRS. ORR.

And the triumph of it all!

MRS. EGERTON.

Ah, no one knows how many, many years Donald has dreamed of this, how all his thought And all his----

(_Stands regarding the young people dancing_)

MRS. ORR.

One has but to look at it.

MRS. EGERTON.

Yet not for it as his, not that at all, But for the building of it.

MRS. ORR.

Of course.

MRS. EGERTON.

And now That it has taken form you cannot think How like a boy he is, how eagerly He flees here from the business of the day And how he walks about enjoying it.

'Tis like the sea. When he is here alone The burden of his great business falls away And he is young again. I sometimes feel, Lying in bed at night and knowing he Is walking here alone, the lights turned low, And listening for the sighing of the pines, That somehow 'tis a woman he has made And that she whispers to him in these hours, Comes to him beautiful from out the pines After his long, long wooing of her----

MRS. ORR.

I see!

Beautiful, beautiful! I see! I see!

It needed that one breath to make it live.

MRS. EGERTON.

To Donald, yes.

MRS. ORR.

Before it was a house, And now a living thing. I see! I see!

(_Kisses the little pines_)

MRS. EGERTON.

If one could only know it is not G.o.d Whispering through the walls of our new home Some dreadful word, and yet with voice so low.

MRS. ORR.

My dear, your words are perfect Greek to me.

MRS. EGERTON.

You know they say the men are suffering so.

And Donald does not seem to see.

MRS. ORR.

(_Vaguely_)

The men?