The Sane Woman
" No, I'm not crazy, Doctor, I'm all right ...
" Whose business is it if I lock the door
To the spare room? You couldn't stand that noise
And work. If I stir round out here,
Jingle the tins and clatter dishwashing,
I can go all day without hearing it.
" I get along all right through the day time ...
Perhaps you could do something for me nights.
Yes, what you heard I told Mis' Peck is true:
She walks out of her picture frame at night;
I hear her stepping light around the house
And laughing in the dark.
" I'd laugh that way
If I were she; Oh, I would laugh and laugh ...
When I first came here as a second wife
I hated the old picture on the wall
Just as a young girl would, but Dana said
His boys would think their father had forgot
Their mother if we took the picture down.
There in the picture they are little boys, —
Five of them hanging on her plumped out arms,
With shining faces and clean roundabouts.
They were grown men-folks when I married him.
But I said, " Very soon I shall not care
About the picture hanging on the wall;
I shall not care," and in wild make-believe
I'd snatch a pillow tight up in my arms.
The years went by ... you see I have grown old,
And he is old too; all day by the fire
He sits and stares at the big picture there
Of his first wife and her five little boys.
" Since he's grown feeble I have sold the wool
And yearlings and made sharp trades out at town.
I'll " never want for anything," you say —
I never had anything , you mean to say.
Men don't count women in their worldly lives, —
They count their children, and their farms and stock!
They're like a river flowing — all these men —
And if you haven't children you're no more
Than driftwood floating on the river's breast,
Flung in an eddy when the tide is full.
" But I am strong; there's something fierce in me
That fights back, hungers, searches all the time:
I'm stronger than she was, but she can laugh, —
I cannot laugh, nor even shed a tear.
You see I have grown old — look close at me,
As she does; why, her eyes eat through
My heart, and her laugh mocks my shrunken breasts.
" How could you think me jealous of the dead
Or crazy? I shan't thank the meddling folk
For telling tales to you to bother me.
I lock the door just to shut out the noise.
Here is the door key — Sh-h-h-h-h! I hear her now;
Go in there, Doctor, and you'll understand. "
" Whose business is it if I lock the door
To the spare room? You couldn't stand that noise
And work. If I stir round out here,
Jingle the tins and clatter dishwashing,
I can go all day without hearing it.
" I get along all right through the day time ...
Perhaps you could do something for me nights.
Yes, what you heard I told Mis' Peck is true:
She walks out of her picture frame at night;
I hear her stepping light around the house
And laughing in the dark.
" I'd laugh that way
If I were she; Oh, I would laugh and laugh ...
When I first came here as a second wife
I hated the old picture on the wall
Just as a young girl would, but Dana said
His boys would think their father had forgot
Their mother if we took the picture down.
There in the picture they are little boys, —
Five of them hanging on her plumped out arms,
With shining faces and clean roundabouts.
They were grown men-folks when I married him.
But I said, " Very soon I shall not care
About the picture hanging on the wall;
I shall not care," and in wild make-believe
I'd snatch a pillow tight up in my arms.
The years went by ... you see I have grown old,
And he is old too; all day by the fire
He sits and stares at the big picture there
Of his first wife and her five little boys.
" Since he's grown feeble I have sold the wool
And yearlings and made sharp trades out at town.
I'll " never want for anything," you say —
I never had anything , you mean to say.
Men don't count women in their worldly lives, —
They count their children, and their farms and stock!
They're like a river flowing — all these men —
And if you haven't children you're no more
Than driftwood floating on the river's breast,
Flung in an eddy when the tide is full.
" But I am strong; there's something fierce in me
That fights back, hungers, searches all the time:
I'm stronger than she was, but she can laugh, —
I cannot laugh, nor even shed a tear.
You see I have grown old — look close at me,
As she does; why, her eyes eat through
My heart, and her laugh mocks my shrunken breasts.
" How could you think me jealous of the dead
Or crazy? I shan't thank the meddling folk
For telling tales to you to bother me.
I lock the door just to shut out the noise.
Here is the door key — Sh-h-h-h-h! I hear her now;
Go in there, Doctor, and you'll understand. "
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