Читать книгу Barren Ground онлайн

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Mrs. Oakley struggled to her feet, and picking up the cake lifter, turned back to the stove. While she stood there against the dull glow, she appeared scarcely more substantial than a spiral of smoke.

"Well, we don't have butter every day," she said. "And I can't lie in bed as long as I've got the strength to be up and doing. Wherever I turn, I see dirt gathering."

"No matter how hard you work, the dirt will always be there," Dorinda persisted. It was useless, she knew, to try to reason with her mother. One could not reason with either a nervous malady or a moral principle; but, even though experience had taught her the futility of remonstrance, there were times when she found it impossible not to scold at a martyrdom that seemed to her unnecessary. They might as well be living in the house, she sometimes thought, with the doctrine of predestination; and like the doctrine of predestination, there was nothing to be done about it.

With a sigh of resignation, she turned to her father, who stood at the window, looking out over the old geraniums that had stopped blooming years ago. Against the murky dawn his figure appeared as rudimentary as some prehistoric image of man.