# Rare Earth/Chapter 2

Chapter II
Jethro's body was cold, numb. It was as though the last spark of life had flickered out. Something had died within him. Never had he given much thought to his boy. The nature and nurture of Scobee had been left entirely in the able hands of Hung Long Tom. As long as Scobee was not interested in farm life, Jethro was not interested in him. He thought of the boy in an impersonal way, seldom as a son. He was not unkind to him. He was not unkind to anybody. He was never mean. He simply ignored Scobee and the boy was thankful for his father's attitude.
The grim, taciturn man appealed very little to him. He was a type hard for the tiny brain ​to understand. Now anybody could love Hung Long Tom, who told the most delightful fairy tales and recited odd bits of Chinese verse that were haunting.
"The Green Sea Is a glowing emerald That lies beyond the Kansu border Where the wind is warm With scents of countless flowers. It is the child Of the Yellow Sun And Blue Night Sky. Sometimes when Winter Comes across the Jade Pass Bits of snow Like pearls Fall into the glowing sea, Mute tributes From the Fairies of the Frost."
Scobee did not understand such poetry but he loved it. It sounded beautiful as Hung Long Tom recited it and beauty was all that Scobee lived for. Beauty in the sky, beauty in a garden, beauty in a picture or in a fragrant ​song. He never tired of the verses which the old Chinaman was forever muttering meditatively, scarcely conscious that the boy was listening to him.
"The Milky Way Is a Milky River That winds through The cold night sky. It is the river Up which Flowers go To realms of lasting fragrance When they die."
For the first time in his life the soil had not brought comfort to Jethro Trent. Even after Ardell's death, he had found a sort of peace from toiling in the fields. So had it been when his father died. But now in this supreme moment, the soil failed him. It was a traitor that turned from him when he needed it most Of course it was a momentary hallucination but he thought of it as a huge monster from which he wished to escape. It was an octopus that had sucked for years at his blood until he was a dried, broken, colorless man. And now ​where could he turn? A root cannot dig itself up and flee from its mother earth simply because it rebels against the course of its life. Thus, Jethro, too, like a root had no source of life other than the soil.
Suddenly the surge of his thoughts was stilled. He listened intently. Within the earth he imagined he could hear a faint, soft murmuring. It was as though there were voices whispering under the frozen loam. What caused that odd murmuring? Was it pure fancy? Or was he listening to the distant murmurings of spring from far down beneath the breast of the earth? Were the buds commencing to yawn and awaken? Were they turning in their sleep and murmuring? Jethro knew not, nor did he care. At least the faint sounds allayed the tumult in his soul. They changed the trend of his thoughts that were driving him mad.
And as he listened, his eyes closed and he slept. And now soft veils of cloud commenced to drift across the sky. Silently like sentinels they marched majestically into place. At last ​it commenced to snow. The white flakes fell on the sleeping form of Jethro Trent. Slowly bit by bit the coverlet of white spun itself about his body. When he awakened he was nearly covered by the snow. Wearily he rose to his feet and gazed about him. It was night. A lonesome crescent moon lifted slantwise into the sky. The snow had ceased to fall. The clouds were scurrying off into the distant shadows. Gradually the night grew very clear and the cold moon reflecting on the frozen snow made a picture that was breath-taking in its simple beauty. The air was cold but not extremely so. Although Jethro felt stiff and tired he had not suffered to any measurable extent from exposure. As ever the soil had been kind to him. The momentary fit of anger had departed. He was wrong to blame the soil for a condition for which it was in no way responsible. Whatever the future might bring he must remain true to the soil. It was his only hope of salvation. Perhaps there was a chance for his boy. Somehow his vision might be restored. It is well that tomorrow is always ​beyond our finger tips. It holds promise. If we caught up with it, then indeed would our lives be desolated. Happiness does not come from the things we have but from the things we expect to get.
In the whiteness of the night Jethro walked slowly back to the house.
Roma, his second wife, a splendid woman, a born mother who had always been childless, met him at the door. She had been rather worried. Never had she known him to stay away for so long a period without explanation.
"What is the matter?" she asked anxiously.
Jethro drew his hand wearily across his eyes as though he had been scarcely conscious of her presence. He smiled a trifle wearily.
"Matter?" he repeated vaguely. "Matter? Nothing is the matter. I have been far off over the fields, much farther than I had intended going, but everything is all right. I think I shall go straight to bed. I am very tired." Before mounting the stairs, he turned to her once more. "I heard the promise of spring whispering in the soil," he said. "I think next ​year our crops will be heavier than ever. I wonder how one measures the capacity which man must reach to be satisfied."
Long after Jethro had gone Roma sat buried in thought before the open-fire. There had been a suggestion of tragedy in her husband's voice. She sensed that at last he was aware that his boy was blind. She loved Jethro so intensely that it was almost worship. Grim, gaunt, silent, never showing love or sentiment, there was still something grand about him. The way he went about his fields, the way the soil responded to his efforts. There was something big about Jethro. His splendor lay not in a thin veneer, a worthless polish, but in his very being. He was like a gnarled oak tree. That night she knew that he was suffering more acutely than he had ever suffered in his life. All the love which he had for his boy, long dormant, had been awakened by that dim realization of blindness. Roma longed to go to him, to take his head in her arms, to comfort him. But men like Jethro must be left alone in their sorrow. They must suffer in silence. ​And she knew it. No woman, not even his wife, could bring peace to his soul, only the soil could do that, God speaking to him through the soil.