THE PADDOCK
Night after night, they don’t, and there I’ll sit,
Jean’s frock, or Andy’s overall to patch,
While Andrew reads aloud, of wheat and wool,
And ’Lizabeth listens. Nine o’clock at last!
I’ll light my candle, let out, full, the yawn
Kept in since daybreak, get to bed.—That’s all!
That’s my whole day.
To-morrow? Same old sorrow!
Cook, clean—the same tame humdrum...I forgot—
Churning’s thrown in—it’s Friday. Every Friday
These last four years....(Let’s see, I’d just left school
When ’Lisbeth sent for me....I’m eighteen now—
Yes! four whole years, except that trip to Aunt’s)
I’ve churn’d! I’ve wash’d on every possible house—
Iron’d each Tuesday, Wednesdays, clean’d the house,—
Oh! haven’t I done enough? And, when it’s done,
What does it all amount to? where’s it gone?
That is the worst of all! If one had slaved
Straight on at anything else that monstrous time,
I guess there would be something, at the end,
Done, and to show for it. But just look at me!
Four years....say seven-and-forty solid months,
Over a thousand days!....I’ve faithfully
Roasted and fried, made beds and bread-and-butter,
Scrubb’d, rubb’d, and all the rest—with what result?
What’s in the house this moment? Tumbled beds,
An empty larder, and a foot-mark’d floor!
That’s all. With all the doing, nothing’s Done;
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