The Rainbow

The household rose early. He was out digging by six o'clock

in the morning, he went to his work at half-past eight. And

Ursula was usually in the garden with him, though not near at

hand.

At Eastertime one year, she helped him to set potatoes. It

was the first time she had ever helped him. The occasion

remained as a picture, one of her earliest memories. They had

gone out soon after dawn. A cold wind was blowing. He had his

old trousers tucked into his boots, he wore no coat nor

waistcoat, his shirt-sleeves fluttered in the wind, his face was

ruddy and intent, in a kind of sleep. When he was at work he

neither heard nor saw. A long, thin man, looking still a youth,

with a line of black moustache above his thick mouth, and his

fine hair blown on his forehead, he worked away at the earth in

the grey first light, alone. His solitariness drew the child

like a spell.

The wind came chill over the dark-green fields. Ursula ran up

and watched him push the setting-peg in at one side of his ready

earth, stride across, and push it in the other side, pulling the

line taut and clear upon the clods intervening. Then with a

sharp cutting noise the bright spade came towards her, cutting a

grip into the new, soft earth.

He struck his spade upright and straightened himself.

"Do you want to help me?" he said.

She looked up at him from out of her little woollen

bonnet.

"Ay," he said, "you can put some taters in for me.

Look--like that--these little sprits standing

up--so much apart, you see."

And stooping down he quickly, surely placed the spritted

potatoes in the soft grip, where they rested separate and

pathetic on the heavy cold earth.

He gave her a little basket of potatoes, and strode himself

to the other end of the line. She saw him stooping, working

towards her. She was excited, and unused. She put in one potato,

then rearranged it, to make it sit nicely. Some of the sprits

were broken, and she was afraid. The responsibility excited her

like a string tying her up. She could not help looking with

dread at the string buried under the heaped-back soil. Her

father was working nearer, stooping, working nearer. She was

overcome by her responsibility. She put potatoes quickly into

the cold earth.

He came near.

"Not so close," he said, stooping over her potatoes, taking

some out and rearranging the others. She stood by with the

painful terrified helplessness of childhood. He was so unseeing

and confident, she wanted to do the thing and yet she could not.

She stood by looking on, her little blue overall fluttering in

the wind, the red woollen ends of her shawl blowing gustily.

Then he went down the row, relentlessly, turning the potatoes in

with his sharp spade-cuts. He took no notice of her, only worked

on. He had another world from hers.