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.