Big Two-Hearted River Read online

  Big Two Hearted River

  by Ernest Miller Hemingway

  Part I

  The train went on up the track out of sight, around one of the hills of

  burnt timber. Nick sat down on the bundle of canvas and bedding the baggage

  man had pitched out of the door of the baggage car. There was no town,

  nothing but the rails and the burned-over country. The thirteen saloons that

  had lined the one street of Seney had not left a trace. The foundations of

  the Mansion House hotel stuck up above the ground. The stone was chipped and

  split by the fire. It was all that was left of the town of Seney. Even the

  surface had been burned off the ground.

  Nick looked at the burned-over stretch of hillside, where he had

  expected to find the scattered houses of the town and then walked down the

  railroad track to the bridge over the river. The river was there. It swirled

  against the log spiles of the bridge. Nick looked down into the clear, brown

  water, colored from the pebbly bottom, and watched the trout keeping

  themselves steady in the current with wavering fins. As he watched them they

  changed their positions by quick angles, only to hold steady in the fast

  water again. Nick watched them a long time.

  He watched them holding themselves with their noses into the current,

  many trout in deep, fast moving water, slightly distorted as he watched far

  down through the glassy convex surface of the pool, its surface pushing and

  swelling smooth against the resistance of the log-driven piles of the

  bridge. At the bottom of the pool were the big trout. Nick did not see them

  at first. Then he saw them at the bottom of the pool, big trout looking to

  hold themselves on the gravel bottom in a varying mist of gravel and sand,

  raised in spurts by the current.

  Nick looked down into the pool from the bridge. It was a hot day. A

  kingfisher flew up the stream. It was a long time since Nick had looked into

  a stream and seen trout. They were very satisfactory. As the shadow of the

  kingfisher moved up the stream, a big trout shot upstream in a long angle,

  only his shadow marking the angle, then lost his shadow as he came through

  the surface of the water, caught the sun, and then, as he went back into the

  stream under the surface, his shadow seemed to float down the stream with

  the current, unresisting, to his post under the bridge where he tightened

  facing up into the current.

  Nick's heart tightened as the trout moved. He felt all the old feeling.

  He turned and looked down the stream. It stretched away,

  pebbly-bottomed with shallows and big boulders and a deep pool as it curved

  away around the foot of a bluff.

  Nick walked back up the ties to where his pack lay in the cinders

  beside the railway track. He was happy. He adjusted the pack harness around

  the bundle, pulling straps tight, slung the pack on his back, got his arms

  through the shoulder straps and took some of the pull off his shoulders by

  leaning his forehead against the wide band of the tump-line. Still, it was

  too heavy. It was much too heavy. He had his leather rod-case in his hand

  and leaning forward to keep the weight of the pack high on his shoulders he

  walked along the road that paralleled the railway track, leaving the burned

  town behind in the heat, and then turned off around a hill with a high,

  fire-scarred hill on either side onto a road that went back into the

  country. He walked along the road feeling the ache from the pull of the

  heavy pack. The road climbed steadily. It was hard work walking up-hill. His

  muscles ached and the day was hot, but Nick felt happy. He felt he had left

  everything behind, the need for thinking, the need to write, other needs. It

  was all back of him.

  From the time he had gotten down off the train and the baggage man had

  thrown his pack out of the open car door things had been different. Seney

  was burned, the country was burned over and changed, but it did not matter.

  It could not all be burned. He knew that. He hiked along the road, sweating

  in the sun, climbing to cross the range of hills that separated the railway

  from the pine plains.

  The road ran on, dipping occasionally, but always climbing. Nick went

  on up. Finally the road after going parallel to the burnt hillside reached

  the top. Nick leaned back against a stump and slipped out of the pack

  harness. Ahead of him, as far as he could see, was the pine plain. The

  burned country stopped off at the left with the range of hills. On ahead

  islands of dark pine trees rose out of the plain. Far off to the left was

  the line of the river. Nick followed it with his eye and caught glints of

  the water in the sun.

  There was nothing but the pine plain ahead of him, until the far blue

  hills that marked the Lake Superior height of land. He could hardly see

  them, faint and far away in the heat-light over the plain. If he looked too

  steadily they were gone. But if he only half-looked they were there, the

  far-off hills of the height of land.

  Nick sat down against the charred stump and smoked a cigarette. His

  pack balanced on the top of the stump, harness holding ready, a hollow

  molded in it from his back. Nick sat smoking, looking out over the country.

  He did not need to get his map out. He knew where he was from the position

  of the river.

  As he smoked, his legs stretched out in front of him, he noticed a

  grasshopper walk along the ground and up onto his woolen sock. The

  grasshopper was black. As he had walked along the road, climbing, he had

  started many grasshoppers from the dust. They were all black. They were not

  the big grasshoppers with yellow and black or red and black wings whirring

  out from their black wing sheathing as they fly up. These were just ordinary

  hoppers, but all a sooty black in color. Nick had wondered about them as he

  walked, without really thinking about them. Now, as he watched the black

  hopper that was nibbling at the wool of his sock with its fourway lip, he

  realized that they had all turned black from living in the burned-over land.

  He realized that the fire must have come the year before, but the

  grasshoppers were all black now. He wondered how long they would stay that

  way.

  Carefully he reached his hand down and took hold of the hopper by the

  wings. He turned him up, all his legs walking in the air, and looked at his

  jointed belly. Yes, it was black too, iridescent where the back and head

  were dusty.

  "Go on, hopper," Nick said, speaking out loud for the first time. "Fly

  away somewhere."

  He tossed the grasshopper up into the air and watched him sail away to

  a charcoal stump across the road.

  Nick stood up. He leaned his back against the weight of his pack where

  it rested upright on the stump and got his arms through the shoulder straps.

  He stood with the pack on his back on the brow of the hill looking out

  across the
country toward the distant river and then struck down the

  hillside away from the road. Underfoot the ground was good walking. Two

  hundred yards down the hillside the fire line stopped. Then it was sweet

  fern, growing ankle high, to walk through, and dumps of jack pines; a long

  undulating country with frequent rises and descents, sandy underfoot and the

  country alive again.

  Nick kept his direction by the sun. He knew where he wanted to strike

  the river and he kept on through the pine plain, mounting small rises to see

  other rises ahead of him and sometimes from the top of a rise a great solid

  island of pines off to his right or his left. He broke off some sprigs of

  the heathery sweet fern, and put them under his pack straps. The chafing

  crushed it and he smelled it as he walked.

  He was tired and very hot, walking across the uneven, shadeless pine

  plain. At any time he knew he could strike the river by turning off to his

  left. It could not be more than a mile away. But he kept on toward the north

  to hit the river as far upstream as he could go in one day's walking.

  For some time as he walked Nick had been in sight of one of the big

  islands of pine standing out above the rolling high ground he was crossing.

  He dipped down and then as he came slowly up to the crest of the bridge

  he turned and made toward the pine trees.

  There was no underbrush in the island of pine trees. The minks of the

  trees went straight up or slanted toward each other. The trunks were

  straight and brown without branches. The branches were high above. Some

  interlocked to make a solid shadow on the brown forest floor. Around the

  grove of trees was a bare space. It was brown and soft underfoot as Nick

  walked on it. This was the over-lapping of the pine needle floor, extending

  out beyond the width of the high branches. The trees had grown tall and the

  branches moved high, leaving in the sun this bare space they had once

  covered with shadow. Sharp at the edge of this extension of the forest floor

  commenced the sweet fern.

  Nick slipped off his pack and lay down in the shade. He lay on his back

  and looked up into the pine trees. His neck and back and the small of his

  back rested as he stretched. The earth felt good against his back. He looked

  up at the sky, through the branches, and then shut his eyes. He opened them

  and looked up again. There was a wind high up in the branches. He shut his

  eyes again and went to sleep.

  Nick woke stiff and cramped. The sun was nearly down. His pack was

  heavy and the straps painful as he lifted it on. He leaned over with the

  pack on and picked up the leather rod-case and started out from the pine

  trees across the sweet fern swale, toward the river. He knew it could not be

  more than a mile.

  He came down a hillside covered with stumps into a meadow. At the edge

  of the meadow flowed the river. Nick was glad to get to the river. He walked

  upstream through the meadow. His trousers were soaked with the dew as he

  walked. After the hot day, the dew had come quickly and heavily. The river

  made no sound. It was too fast and smooth. At the edge of the meadow, before

  he mounted to a piece of high ground to make camp. Nick looked down the

  river at the trout rising. They were rising to insects come from the swamp

  on the other side of the stream when the sun went down. The trout jumped out

  of water to take them. While Nick walked through the little stretch of

  meadow alongside the stream, trout had jumped high out of water. Now as he

  looked down the river, the insects must be settling on the surface, for the

  trout were feeding steadily all down the stream. As far down the long

  stretch as he could see, the trout were rising, making circles all down the

  surface of the water, as though it were starting to rain.

  The ground rose, wooded and sandy, to overlook the meadow, the stretch

  of river and the swamp. Nick dropped his pack and rod-case and looked for a

  level piece of ground. He was very hungry and he wanted to make his camp

  before he cooked. Between two jack pines, the ground was quite level. He

  took the ax out of the pack and chopped out two projecting roots. That

  leveled a piece of ground large enough to sleep on. He smoothed out the

  sandy soil with his hand and pulled all the sweet fern bushes by their

  roots. His hands smelled good from the sweet fern. He smoothed the uprooted

  earth. He did not want anything making lumps under the blankets. When he had

  the ground smooth, he spread his three blankets. One he folded double, next

  to the ground. The other two he spread on top.

  With the ax he slit off a bright slab of pine from one of the stumps

  and split it into pegs for the tent. He wanted them long and solid to hold

  in the ground. With the tent unpacked and spread on the ground, the pack,

  leaning against a jackpine, looked much smaller. Nick tied the rope that

  served the tent for a ridge-pole to the trunk of one of the pine trees and

  pulled the tent up off the ground with the other end of the rope and tied it

  to the other pine. The tent hung on the rope like a canvas blanket on a

  clothesline. Nick poked a pole he had cut up under the back peak of the

  canvas and then made it a tent by pegging out the sides. He pegged the sides

  out taut and drove the pegs deep, hitting them down into the ground with the

  flat of the ax until the rope loops were buried and the canvas was drum

  tight.

  Across the open mouth of the tent Nick fixed cheesecloth to keep out

  mosquitoes. He crawled inside under the mosquito bar with various things

  from the pack to put at the head of the bed under the slant of the canvas.

  Inside the tent the light came through the brown canvas. It smelled

  pleasantly of canvas. Already there was something mysterious and homelike.

  Nick was happy as he crawled inside the tent. He had not been unhappy all

  day. This was different though. Now things were done. There had been this to

  do. Now it was done. It had been a hard trip. He was very tired. That was

  done. He had made his camp. He was settled. Nothing could touch him. It was

  a good place to camp. He was there, in the good place. He was in his home

  where he had made it. Now he was hungry.

  He came out, crawling under the cheesecloth. It was quite dark outside.

  It was lighter in the tent.

  Nick went over to the pack and found, with his fingers, a long nail in

  a paper sack of nails, in the bottom of the pack. He drove it into the pine

  tree, holding it close and hitting it gently with the flat of the ax. He

  hung the pack up on the nail. All his supplies were in the pack. They were

  off the ground and sheltered now.

  Nick was hungry. He did not believe he had ever been hungrier. He

  opened and emptied a can of pork and beans and a can of spaghetti into the

  frying pan.

  "I've got a right to eat this kind of stuff, if I'm willing to carry

  it," Nick said. His voice sounded strange in the darkening woods. He did not

  speak again.

  He started a fire with some chunks of pine he got with the ax from a

  stump. Over the fire he stuck a wire grill, pushing the four legs down into

  the
ground with his boot. Nick put the frying pan on the grill over the

  flames. He was hungrier. The beans and spaghetti wanned. Nick stirred them

  and mixed them together. They began to bubble, making little bubbles that

  rose with difficulty to the surface. There was a good smell. Nick got out a

  bottle of tomato catchup and cut four slices of bread. The little bubbles

  were coming faster now. Nick sat down beside the fire and lifted the frying

  pan off. He poured about half the contents out into the tin plate. It spread

  slowly on the plate. Nick knew it was too hot. He poured on some tomato

  catchup. He knew the beans and spaghetti were still too hot. He looked at

  the fire, then at the tent, he was not going to spoil it all by burning his

  tongue. For years he had never enjoyed fried bananas because he had never

  been able to wait for them to cool. His tongue was very sensitive. He was

  very hungry. Across the river in the swamp, in the almost dark, he saw a

  mist rising. He looked at the tent once more. All right. He took a full

  spoonful from the plate.

  "Chrise," Nick said, "Geezus Chrise," he said happily.

  He ate the whole plateful before he remembered the bread. Nick finished

  the second plateful with the bread, mopping the plate shiny. He had not

  eaten since a cup of coffee and a ham sandwich in the station restaurant at

  St. Ignace. It had been a very fine experience. He had been that hungry

  before, but had not been able to satisfy it. He could have made camp hours

  before if he had wanted to. There were plenty of good places to camp on the

  river. But this was good.

  Nick tucked two big chips of pine under the grill. The fire flared up.

  He had forgotten to get water for the coffee. Out of the pack he got a

  folding canvas bucket and walked down the hill, across the edge of the

  meadow, to the stream. The other bank was in the white mist. The grass was

  wet and cold as he knelt on the bank and dipped the canvas bucket into the

  stream. It bellied and pulled hard in the current. The water was ice cold.

  Nick rinsed the bucket and carried it full up to the camp. Up away from the

  stream it was not so cold.

  Nick drove another big nail and hung up the bucket full of water. He

  dipped the coffee pot half full, put some more chips under the grill onto

  the fire and put the pot on. He could not remember which way he made coffee.