]
PIPER
No, no. But--care
And want and pain and age. . .
[Turns back to them with a bitter change of voice]
And penny-wealth,--
And penny-counting.--Penny prides and fears--
Of what the neighbors say the neighbors say!--
MARTIN'S WIFE
And were you born without a mother, then?
ALL
Yes, you there! Ah, I told you! He's no man.
He's of the devil.
MARTIN'S WIFE
Who was your mother, then?
PIPER
[fiercely]
Mine!--Nay, I do not know. For when I saw her,
She was a thing so trodden, lost and sad,
I cannot think that she was ever young,
Save in the cherishing voice.--She was a stroller;
My father was a stroller.--So, you have it!
And since she clave to him, and hunger too,
The Church's ban was on her.--Either live,
Mewed up forever,--she! to be a nun;
Or keep her life-long wandering with the wind;
The very name of wife stript from her troth.
That was my mother.--And she starved and sang;
And like the wind, she roved and lurked and shuddered
Outside your lighted windows, and fled by,
Storm-hunted, trying to outstrip the snow,
South, south, and homeless as a broken bird,--
Limping and hiding!--And she fled, and laughed,
And kept me warm; and died! To you, a Nothing;
Nothing, forever, oh, you well-housed mothers!
As always, always for the lighted windows
Of all the world, the Dark outside is nothing;
And all that limps and hides there in the dark;
Famishing,--broken,--lost!
And I have sworn
For her sake and for all, that I will have
Some justice, all so late, for wretched men,
Out of these same smug towns that drive us forth
After the show!--Or scheme to cage us up
Out of the sunlight; like a squirrel's heart
Torn out and drying in the market-place.
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