The Valley of Vision : a Book of Romance an Some Half Told Tales by Henry Van Dyke
page 16 of 207 (07%)
page 16 of 207 (07%)
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A boy straining to push a wheelbarrow with his pale mother in it,
and his two little sisters trudging at his side. A peasant with his two girls driving their lean, dejected cows back to some unknown pasture. A bony horse tugging at a wagon heaped high with bedding and household gear, on top of which sat the wrinkled grandmother with the tiniest baby in her arms, while the rest of the family stumbled alongside--and the cat was curled up on the softest coverlet in the wagon. Two panting dogs, with red tongues hanging out, and splayed feet clawing the road, tugging a heavy-laden cart while the master pushed behind and the woman pulled in the shafts. Strange, antique vehicles crammed with passengers. Couples and groups and sometimes larger companies of foot-travellers. Now and then a solitary man or woman, old and shabby, bundle on back, eyes on the road, plodding through the mud and the mist, under the high archway of yellowing leaves. [Illustration: All were fugitives, anxious to be gone, ... and making no more speed than a creeping snail's pace of unutterable fatigue.] All these distinct pictures I saw, yet it was all one vision--a vision of humanity with its dumb companions in flight--infinitely slow, painful, pitiful flight! I saw no tears, I heard no cries of complaint. But beneath the numb and patient haste on all those dazed faces I saw a question. _"What have we done? Why has this thing come upon us and our children?"_ |
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