SILAS put the book in his pocket and looked down the trail. Some ten rods away two children were running towards him, their hands full of wild flowers. They were Socky and Sue, on their way to Lost River camp, and were the first children—save one—who had ever set their feet on the old trail. Gordon walked slowly, under a heavy pack, well behind them. They knew they were near their destination. Their father could scarcely keep them in hailing distance.
Sue had observed that Socky's generosity in the matter of the tin bank had pleased her father, and so, after much thought, she had determined to make a venture in benevolence.
"When I see Uncle Silas," said she, "I'm going to give him the twenty-five cents my Aunt Marie gave me."
"Pooh! he's got loads of money," Socky answered.
They stopped suddenly. Sue dropped her flowers and turned to run. Socky gave a little jump and recovered his courage. Both retreated a few steps. There, before them, was the dejected "Emperor of the Woods."
"Says I!" he exclaimed, looking down calmly from his throne.
Socky glanced up at him fearfully.
"Who b-be you?"
"John Socksmith Gordon."
"T-y-ty!" exclaimed the Emperor, an expression, as the historian believes', of great surprise, standing, perhaps, for the old oath "By 'Mighty." It consisted of the pronunciation of the two letters separately and then together.
The Emperor turned to the girl. "And y-yourn?" he inquired.
"Susan Bradbury Gordon," she answered, in a half-whisper.
"I tnum!" exclaimed the Emperor, shaking his bootless foot, whereupon the new-comers retreated a little farther. The singular word "tnum" expressed an unusual degree of interest on the part of the Emperor. "G-goin' fur?" he inquired.
"To Lost River, to see my Uncle Silas."
The Emperor gave a loud whistle of surprise, and repeated the exclamation—"I tnum!"
"My father's coming," said Socky, as he pointed down the trail.
"Whee-o!" whistled the "Emperor of the Woods," who now perceived his brother-in-law ascending the trail.
"Old man, what are you doing there?" Gordon asked.
"Thinkin' out some th-thoughts," said the Emperor, soberly, as he came into the trail, limping on his bare foot, and shook hands. There were greetings, and the hunter briefly apologized for his bare leg and explained it.
"Well, how are you?" Gordon asked.
"S-supple!" Strong answered, cheerfully.
The children got behind their father, peering from either side of him as they saw this uncouth figure coming near. Sue pressed the hand of her brother so tightly as to cause the boy to break her hold upon him.
"R-ride?" said the Emperor, putting his great hand on the head of the boy and shaking it a little. Socky looked up at him with large, wondering, timid eyes. Sue hid her face under the coat-tails of her father.
"They'd rather walk; come on," said Gordon.
The men proceeded slowly over the hill and down into the valley of Lost River. The children followed, some twenty paces behind, whispering together. They were still in happy ignorance of the identity of the strange man.
"S-sold out—eh?" said the hunter.
"Sold out! Sorry! They're going to shove a railroad in here and begin cutting."
A smothered oath broke from the lips of the Emperor. Gordon came near to him and whispered:
"Sile," said he, "don't swear before the kids. I'm bad enough, but I've always been careful about that. Going to leave 'em here if you'll let me."
"G-good—" The Emperor stopped short and his voice fell into thoughtful silence.
As they came in sight of the little clearing and the tent and cabins of Lost River camp, Sue and Socky ran ahead of the men.
"I'm in trouble," Gordon went on. "My account at the mill is overdrawn. They've pushed me to the verge of madness. I must have a little help."
The woodsman stopped and put his hand on the shoulder of Gordon.
"Been f-foolish, Dick?" said he, kindly.
"I'm done with that. I want to begin new. I need a little money to throw to the wolves."
"How m-much?"
"Four hundred dollars would do me."
Strong beckoned to him.
"C-come to my goosepen," said the hunter, as he led the way to an old basswood some fifty paces from the camp. He removed a piece of bark which fitted nicely over a hole in the tree-trunk. He put his hand in the hole which he called a goosepen and took out a roll of bills.
"You save like a squirrel," said Gordon.
"Dunno no other w-way," Strong answered as he began to count the money. "Three hundred an' s-seventy dollars," he said, presently, and gave it to his brother-in-law. He felt in the hole again. "B-bank's failed!" he added.
The kindness of the woodland was in the face of the hunter. He was like an old hickory drawing its nourishment from the very bosom of the earth and freely giving its crop. Where he fed there was plenty, and he had no more thought of his own needs than a tree.
"Thank you' It's enough," said Gordon. "Better keep some of it."
"N-no good here," Strong answered, with his old reliance on the bounty of nature.
"I'll go out to Pitkin in the morning. I'm going to get a new start in the world. If you'll take care of the children I'll send you some money every month. You've been a brother to me, and I'll not forget."
The Emperor sat upon a log and took a pencil and an old memorandum-book from his pocket and wrote on a leaf this letter to Annette:
"Deer frend—I am wel compny com today I dunno when I'll see you. woods is hot and dry fish plenty Socks on feel splendid hopin for better times "yours trewly
"S. Strong.
"P. S.—Strong's ahed."
In truth, the whole purpose of the letter lay in that laconic postscript, expressing, as it did, a sense of moral triumph under great difficulties.
The Emperor stripped a piece of bark off a birch-tree, trimmed it with his knife, and, enfolding it around the letter, bound it in the middle with a long thorn which he drew out of the lapel of his "jacket." He handed the missive to Gordon, saying, "F-for Ann Roice."
The children stood peering into an open door when the men came and flung down their packs.
Sinth had gone to work in the garden, which was near the river-bank. Silas Strong entered his cabin. The children came to their father, who had seated himself on a chopping-block. Having forgotten the real Uncle Silas, they had been looking for that splendid creature of whom they had dreamed.
"Father," Socky whispered, "where is Uncle Silas?"
"That was Uncle Silas," said Gordon.
The eyes of the children were fixed upon his, while their faces began to change color. The long, dark lashes of little Sue quivered for a second as if she had received a blow. Socky's glance fell; his trembling hands, which lay on the knee of Gordon, seemed to clutch at each other; then his right thumb stood up straight and stiff; his lips parted. One might have observed a little upward twitch of the muscles under either cheek. It signalized the first touch of bitter disappointment.
"That man?" he whispered, looking up doubtfully as he pointed in the direction of the door into which Strong had disappeared.
"That's Uncle Silas," said Gordon, with smiling amusement.
Socky turned and spat upon the ground.
Slowly he walked away, scuffing his feet. Sue followed with a look of dejection. They went behind the camp and found the big potato-hole and crawled into it. The bottom was covered with dry leaves. They sat down, but neither spoke. Socky leaned forward, his chin upon his hands.
"Do you like Uncle Silas?" Sue whispered.
For a moment Socky did not change his attitude or make any reply.
"I wouldn't give him no twenty-five cents," Sue added.
"Don't speak to me," Socky answered, with a quick movement of his knee.
It was a time of sad discovery—that pathetic day when the first castle of childhood falls upon its builder.
"I'm going home," said Sue.
"You won't be let," Socky answered, his under lip trembling as he thought of the old lumberyard.
Suddenly he lay over on the leaves, his forehead on his elbow, and wept in silence. Sue lay beside him, her cheek partly covered by golden curls. She felt badly, but did not give way. They were both utterly weary and cast down. Sue lay on her back and drew out her tiny doll much as a man would light a cigarette in his moment of abstraction. She flirted it in the air and brought it down upon her breast. The doll had come out of her pocket just in time to save her. She lay yawning a few moments, then fell asleep, and soon Socky joined her.
Gordon lay down upon a bed in one of the cabins. He, too, was weary and soon forgot his troubles. The Emperor, having shifted his garments, went behind the camp and stood looking down at his sorrowing people. A smile spread over his countenance. It came and passed like a billow of sunlight flooding over the hills. He shook his head with amusement.
Soon he turned away and sauntered slowly towards the river-bank. These, children had been flung, as it were, upon the ruin of his hopes. What should he do with them and with "Mis' Strong"? Suddenly a reflection of unusual magnitude broke from his lips.
"They's g-got t' be tall contrivin'," he whispered, with a sigh.
Sinth, who had been sowing onions, heard him coming and rose to her feet.
"G-Gordon!" said he, pointing towards camp. "Anybody with him?" she asked..
"The childem," said he. "G-goin't' leave 'em."
Sinth turned with a look of alarm.
"C-can't swear, nuther," Strong added.
"He can take 'em back," said Miss Strong, with flashing eyes and a flirt of her apron.
"R-roughlocks!" the Emperor demanded, in a low tone.
"Who'll tek care of 'em?"
"M-me."
"Heavens!" she exclaimed, her voice full of despair.
"C-come, Mis' Strong." So saying, Silas took the arm of his complaining sister and led her up the hill.
When he had come to the potato-hole he pointed down at the children. They had dressed with scrupulous care for the eye of him who, not an hour since, had been the greatest of all men. The boy lay in his only wide, white collar and necktie, in his best coat and knee-breeches. The girl had on her beloved brown dress and pink sun-bonnet. It was a picture to fill one's eyes, and all the more if one could have seen the hearts of those little people. A new look came into the face of Sinth.
"Land sakes!" she exclaimed, raising one of her hands and letting it fall again; "she looks like Sister Thankful—don't she, don't she, Silas?"
Sinth wiped her eyes with her apron. The heart of Silas Strong had also been deeply touched.
"R-reg'lar angel!" he exclaimed, thoughtfully. After a moment of silence he added, "K-kind o' like leetle f-fawns."
They turned away, proceeding to the cook-tent. Sinth looked as if she were making up her mind; Silas as if his were already made up. Sinth began to rattle the pots and pans.
"Sh-h!" Silas hissed, as he fixed the fire.
"What's the matter?" she demanded.
"W-wake 'em up."
"Hope I will," she retorted, loudly.
Strong strode off in the trail to Catamount Pond, where he was to get Master.
Zeb, the bear-dog, had been digging at a foxhole over in Birch Hollow. Growing weary and athirst, by-and-by he relinquished his enterprise, crossed to the trail, and, discovering the scent of strangers, hurried home. Soon he found those curious little folks down in the potato-hole. He had never seen a child before. He smelled them over cautiously. His opinion was extremely favorable. His tail began to wag, and, unable to restrain his enthusiasm, he expressed himself in a loud bark.
The children awoke, and Zeb retreated. Socky and Sue rose, the latter crying, while that little, yellow snip of a bear-dog, with cross-eye and curving tail, surveyed them anxiously. He backed away as if to coax them out of the hole. When they had come near he seemed to be wiping one foot after another upon the ground vigorously. As he did so he growled in a manner calculated to inspire respect. Then he ran around them in a wide circle at high speed, growling a playful challenge. Socky, who had some understanding of dogs, dashed upon Zeb, and soon they were all at play together.
ON Catamount Pond young Master had enjoyed a memorable day. He was an expert fisherman, but the lonely quiet of the scene had been more than fish to him: of it was a barren ridge, from the top of which a broken column of dead pine, like a shaft of wrought marble, towered straight and high above the woods. The curving shore had a fringe of lily-pads, starred here and there with white tufts. Around thickets of birch, on a point of land, a little cove was the end of all the deer-trails that came out of Jiminy Swamp. It was the gateway of the pond for all who journeyed thither to eat and drink. There were white columns on either side, and opposite the cove's end was a thicket of tamarack, clear of brush. A deep mat of vivid green moss came to the water's edge. When one had rounded the point in his canoe, he could see into those cool, dark alleys of the deer, leading off through slender tamaracks. A little beyond were the rock bastions of Painter Mountain, five hundred' feet above the water.
The young man, having grown weary of fishing, leaned back, lighted his pipe, and drifted. He could hear the chattering of a hedgehog up in the dry timber, and the scream of a hawk, like the whistle of some craft, leagues away on the sunlit deep of silence. A wild goose steered straight across the heavens, far bound, his wings making a noise like the cleaving of water and the creak of full sails. He saw the man below him and flung a cry overboard. A great bee, driven out of a lily, threw his warning loop around the head of the intruder and boomed out of hearing. Those threads of sound seemed to bind the tongue of the youth, and to connect his soul with the great silence into which they ran.
Robert Master had crossed that desert of uncertainty which lies between college and the beginning of a career. At last he had made his plan. He would try in his own simple way to serve his country. He was a man of "the new spirit," of pure ideals, of high patriotism. He had set out to try to make his way in politics.
He had been one of the "big men," dauntless and powerful, who had saved the day for hisalma matermore than once on the track and the gridiron. Handsome was a word which had been much applied to him. Hard work in the open air had given him a sturdy figure and added the glow of health and power to a face of unusual refinement. It was the face of a man with whom the capacity, for stern trials had come by acquisition and not by inheritance. He had cheerful brown eyes and a smile of good-nature that made him beloved. His father was at the big camp, some twenty miles away, his mother and sister having gone abroad. He and his father were fond of their forest home; the ladies found it a bore. They loved better the grand life and the great highways of travel.
Master sat in the centre of his canoe; an elbow rested on his paddle which lay athwart the gunwales. He drifted awhile. He had chosen his life work but not his life partner. He pictured to himself the girl he would love, had he ever the luck to find her. He had thrown off his hat, and his dark hair shone in the sunlight. Soon he pushed slowly down the pond. In a moment he stilled his paddle and sat looking into Birch Cove. Two fawns were playing in the edge of the water, while their dam, with the dignity of a matron, stood on the shore looking down at them. The fawns gambolled in the shallows like a colt at play, now and then dashing their muzzles in the cool water. Their red coats were starred white as if with snow-flakes. The deer stood a moment looking at Master, stamped her feet, and retired into one of the dark alleys. In a moment her fawns followed.
Turning, the fisherman beheld what gave him even greater surprise. In the shadow of the birches, on a side of the cove and scarcely thirty feet from his canoe, a girl sat looking at him. She wore a blue knit jacket and gray skirt. There was nothing on her head save its mass of light hair that fell curling on her shoulders. Her skin was brown as a berry, her features of a noble and delicate mould. Her eyes, blue and large, made their potent appeal to the heart of Master. They were like those of his dreams—he could never forget them. So far it's the old story of love at sight—but listen. For half a moment they looked into each other's eyes. Then the girl, as if she were afraid of him, rose and disappeared among the columns of white birch.
Long he sat there wondering about this strange vision of girlhood, until he heard the halloo of Silas Strong. Turning his canoe, he pushed for the landing.
"L-lucky?" Strong asked.
"Twenty fish, and I saw the most beautiful woman in the world."
"Where?"
"Sitting on the shore of Birch Cove. Any camp near?"
The Emperor shook his head thoughtfully as he lighted his pipe. The two made their way up the trail.
"W-wonder if it's her?" Strong whispered to himself as he walked along.
After supper that evening Silas Strong gathered a heap of wood for a bonfire—a way he had of celebrating arrivals at Lost River camp. Soon he was running upon hands and knees in the firelight, with Socky and Sue on his back.
"Silas Strong!" was the seornful exclamation of Sinth, as she took a seat by the fire, "P-present!" he answered, as he werit on, the children laughing merrily. "Be you a man 'or a fool?"
"Both;" he answered, ceasing his harlequinade. Sinth began her knitting, wearing, a look of injury. "Plumb crazy 'bout them air childern!" she exclaimed.
The "Emperor of the Woods" sat on a log, breathing heavily, with Sue and Socky upon his knees.
"B-bears plenty, Mis' Strong," was the gentle reply of Silas.
"Mis' Strong!" said she, as if insulted. "What ye Mis' Strongin' me for?"
When others were present she was wont to fling back upon him this burning query. Now it seemed to stimulate him to a rather unusual effort.
"S-some folks b-better when ye miss 'em," he suggested, with a smile of good-nature.
Miss Strong gathered up her knitting and promptly retired, from the scene. Sue and Socky lay back on the lap of their Uncle Silas looking into the fire. They now saw in him great possibilities. Socky, in particular, had begun to regard him as likely to be useful if not highly magnificent.
Sue lay back and began to make a drowsy display of her learning:
"Intry, mintry, cutry com,
Apple-seed an' apple-thorn,
Wire, brier, limber lock,
Twelve geese all in a white flock;
Some fly east an' some fly west
An' some fly over the cuckoo's nest."
Miss Strong returned shortly and found the children asleep on the knees of their uncle. In a moment Silas turned his ear and listened.
"Hark!" he whispered.
They could hear some one approaching on the dark trail. A man oddly picturesque, with a rifle on his shoulder, strode into the firelight. He wore knee-breeches and a coat of buckskin. He had a rugged face, a sturdy figure, and was, one would have guessed, some sixty years of age.
A fringe of thin, white hair showed below his cap. He had a white mustache, through which a forgotten cigar protruded. His black eyes glowed in the firelight beneath silvered brows. He nodded as they greeted him. His ruddy face wrinkled thoughtfully as he turned to Gordon.
"It's a long time," said he, offering his hand.
"Some years," Gordon answered, as he took the hand of Dunmore.
"W-welcome!" said Silas Strong.
"Boneka!" Dunmore exclaimed, gruffly, but with a faint smile. For years it had been his customary word of greeting.
"The Emperor and his court!" he went on, as he looked about him. "Who are these?" He surveyed the sleeping children.
"The Duke and Duchess of Hillsborough—nephew and niece of the Emperor," Master answered, giving them titles which clung to Socky and Sue for a twelvemonth.
"The first children I've ever seen in the woods except my own," said the white-haired man.
Zeb ran around the chair of the Emperor, growling and leaping playfully at Socky and Sue.
"The court jester!" said Dunmore, looking down at the dog.
He stood a moment with his back to the blazing logs.
Then he went to the chair of the Emperor, and put his hand under the chin of little Sue and looked into her face. In half a moment he took her in his arms and sat down by the fireside. The child was yawning wearily.
"Heigh-ho!" he exclaimed; "let's away to the Isles of Rest."
He rocked back and forth as he held her against his breast and sang this lullaby:
"Jack Tot was as big as a baby's thumb,
And his belly could hold but a drop and a crumb,
And a wee little sailor was he—Heigh-ho!
A very fine sailor was he.
'He made his boat of a cocoa-nut shell,
He sails her at night and he steers her well
With the wing of a bumble-bee—Heigh-ho!
With the wing of a bumble-bee.
'She is rigged with the hair of a lady's curl,
And her lantern is made of a gleaming pearl,
And it never goes out in a gale—Heigh-ho!
It never goes out in a gale.
'Her mast is made of a very long thorn,
She calls her crew with a cricket's horn,
And a spider spun her sail—Heigh-ho!
A spider he spun her sail.
'She carries a cargo of baby souls,
And she crosses the terrible nightmare shoals
On her way to the Isles of Rest—Heigh-ho!
We're off for the Isles of Rest.
'And often they smile as the good ship sails—
Then the skipper is telling incredible tales
With many a merry jest—Heigh-ho!
He's fond of a merry jest.
'When the little folks yawn they are ready to go,
And Jack Tot is lifting his sail—Hee-hoo!
In the swell how the little folks nod—He-hoo!
Just see how the little folks nod.
'And some have sailed off when the sky was black,
And the poor little sailors have never come back,
But have steered for the City of God—Heigh-ho!
The beautiful City of God!"
The white-haired man closed his eyes and his voice sank low, and the last words fell softly in a solemn silence that lasted for a long moment after the lullaby was finished. Presently Sinth came to take the sleeping child.
"These little folks will take our peace away from us," said he, in a warning tone.
"Why?"
"The call of the sown land is in their voices," said he. "They give me sad thoughts."
Sinth smiled and introduced the young man to Dunmore.
"Boneka!" said the latter as they shook hands.
The curiosity of Master was aroused by the strange greeting. He smiled, and answered, modestly, "I don't understand you."
The stranger sat silent, gazing into the fire, until Silas, who was evidently in the secret, said to his guest, "Tell 'em."
"There was once a very wise and honored chief," began Dunmore, after a pause, and looking into the eyes of the young man. "Long before the lumber hunter had begun to shear the hills, he dwelt among them, with his good people. He was a great law-giver, and his law was all in two words—'Be kind.' Kindness begat kindness, and peace reigned, to be broken only by some far-come invader. But as time went on quarrels arose and the law was forgotten. Thereupon the chief invited a great council and organized the Society of the Magic Word. Every member promised that whenever the greeting 'Boneka' were given him, he would smile and bow and answer, 'Ranokoli.' The greeting meant 'Peace,' and the answer, 'I forgive.'
"Then, one by one, the law-giver called his councillors before him, and to each he said: 'The Great Spirit is in this greeting. I defy you to hear it and keep a sober face.'
"Then he said 'Boneka,' and the man would try to resist the influence of the spirit, but soon smiled in spite of himself, amid the laughter of the tribe, and said 'Ranokoli.' Thereafter, when a quarrel arose between two people, an outsider, approaching, would greet them with the magic word, and immediately they would bow and smile, and answer, 'I forgive.' But, nevertheless, if one had wronged another he was justly punished by the chief. So it was that a great ruler made an end of quarrels among his people."
"A grand idea!" said young Master. "Let's all join that society."
"Those in favor of the suggestion will please say ay." It was Dunmore who put the question, and, after a vote in its favor, dictated the pledge, as follows:
"For value received from my Loving Father, I promise to give to any of His children, on demand, a smile and full forgiveness."
All signed it, and so half in play the old Society of the Magic Word was revived at Lost River camp.
The white-haired man rose and walked to the trail and turned suddenly.
"Strong," said he, "I'm leaving the woods for a week. If they need your help at home they'll send word to you."
With that he disappeared in the dark trail.
The three other men still sat by the camp-fire.
"Who is Dunmore?" Master inquired, turning to Gordon.
The latter lighted his pipe and began the story.
"An odd man who's spent the most of his life in the woods," said Gordon. "Came in here for his health long ago from I don't know where; grew strong, and has always stuck to the woods. Had to work, like the rest of us, when I knew him. Thirty years ago he began work in this part of the country as a boom rat—so they tell me. It was on a big drive way down the Oswegatchie.
"Before we bought the Bear Mountain and Lost River tracts we were looking for a good cruiser—some one to go through here and estimate the timber for us. Well, Dunmore was recommended for the job, and we hired him. He and I travelled over some thirty thousand acres, camping wherever night overtook us. It did not take me long to discover that he was a gifted man. Many an evening, as we sat by our lonely fire in the woods, I have wept and laughed over his poems."
"Poems!" Master exclaimed.
"That's the only word for it," Gordon went on. "The man is a woods lover and a poet. One night he told me part of his life story. Sile, you remember when the old iron company shut down their works at Tifton. Well, everybody left the place except Tom Muir, the postmaster. He was a widower, and lived with one child—a girl about nineteen years old when the forest village died. Dunmore married that girl. He told me how beautiful she was and how he loved her. Well, they didn't get along together. He was fond of the woods and she was not.
"For five years they lived together in the edge of the wilderness. Then she left him. Well—poor woman!—it was a lonely life, and some tourist fell in love with her, they tell me. I don't know about that. Anyhow, Dunmore was terribly embittered. A little daughter had been born to them. She was then three years of age."
"She's the angel y-you met to-day over by the p-pond," Strong put in, looking at Master.
Gordon lighted his pipe and went on with his story.
"Dunmore said that a relative had left him a little money. I remember we were camping that night on the shore of Buckhorn. Its beauty appealed to him. He said he'd like to buy that section and build him a camp on the pond and spend the rest of his life there.
"'But,' said I, 'you couldn't bring up your daughter in the woods.' Buckhorn was then thirty miles from anywhere.
"'That's just what I wish to do,' he answered. 'The world is so full of d———d spaniels'—I remember that was the phrase he used—and there's so much infamy among men, I'd rather keep her out of it. I want her to be as pure at twenty as she is now. I can teach her all I wish her to know.'
"Well, I sold him the Buckhorn tract. He built his camp, and moved there with the little girl and his mother—a woman of poor health and well past middle age. He brought an old colored man and his wife to be their servants, and there they are to-day—Dunmore and his mother and the girl and the two servants, now grown rather aged, they tell me."
"They have never left the woods?" said Master, as if it were too incredible.
"Dunmore goes to New York, but not oftener than once a year," Gordon went on. "He has property—a good deal of property, I suppose, and has to give it some attention. The others have never left the woods."
"Sends home b-big boxes, an' I t-tote 'em in," Silas explained.
"Do you mean to tell me that Dunmore's daughter has never seen the clearing since she was a baby?"
Strong's interest was thoroughly aroused. He took off his coat and laid it down carefully, as if he were about to go in swimming. He was wont to do this when his thoughts demanded free and full expression.
"B-been t' Tillbury post-office w-with the ol' man—n-no further," Strong explained. "Dunmore says she 'ain't never s-seen a child 'cept one. That was a b-baby. Some man an' his w-wife come through here w-with it from the n-north th-three year ago."
"Fact is, I think he feared for a long time that his wife would try to get possession of the child," said Gordon. "Late years, I understand, the girl has had to take care of the old lady. In a letter to me once Dunmore referred to his daughter as the 'little nun of the green veil,' and spoke of her devotion to her grandmother."
Gordon rose and went to his bed in one of the cabins. Strong and the young man kept their seats at the camp-fire, talking of Dunmore and his daughter and their life in the woods. The Emperor, who felt for this lonely child of the forest, talked from a sense of duty.
"S-sail in," he presently said. "S-sail in an' t-tame her."
"I don't know how to begin."
"She'll be there t-to-morrer sure," Strong declared.
"So shall I," said the young man.
"C-cal'late she's w-wownded, too," Strong suggested. "B-be careful. She's like a w-wild deer."
They were leaving the fire on their way to bed. The young man stopped and repeated the words incredulously—"Like a wild deer!"
"T-take the ch-childem with ye," Strong advised. "She'll w-want t' look 'em over."
SOCKY woke early next morning, and lay looking up at the antlers, guns, and rifles which adorned the wall. On a table near him were some of the treasures of that sylvan household—a little book entitledMelinda, a dingy Testament, a plush-covered photograph-album, and a stuffed bird on a wire bough.
Sinth and the album were inseparable. She sometimes left the dingy Testament or the little book entitledMelindaat her Pitkin home, but not the plush-covered album. That was the one link which connected her, not only with the past, but with a degree of respectability, and even with a vague hope of paradise. What a pantheon of family deities! What a museum of hair and whiskers! What a study of the effect of terror, headache, rheumatism, weariness, Sunday apparel, tight boots, and reckless photography upon the human countenance!
Therein was the face of Sinth, indescribably gnarled by the lens; a daguerreotype of her grandmother adorned with lace and tokens of a more cheerful time in the family history; faces and forms which for Sinth recalled her play-days, and were gone as hopelessly.
Just after supper the night before, Socky had seen his uncle apply grease to a number of boots and guns. The boy had been permitted to put his hands in the thick oil of the bear, and, while its odor irked him a little, it had, as it were, reduced the friction on his bearings. Since then the gear of his imagination had seemed to work easier, and had carried him far towards the goal of manhood.
Immediately after waking he found the bottle of bear's-oil and poured some on his own boots and rubbed it in. He was now delighted with the look of them. It was wonderful stuff, that bear's-oil. It made everything look shiny and cheerful, and gave one a grateful sense of high accomplishment.
Soon he had greased the bird and the bush, and the oil had dripped on the album and the dingy Testament and the little book entitledMelinda. Then he greased the feet and legs of Zeb, who lay asleep in a corner, and who promptly awoke and ran across the floor and leaped through an open window, and hid himself under a boat, as if for proper consideration of ways and means. In a few moments Socky had greased the shoes of his sister, and a ramrod which lay on the window-sill, and taken the latter into bed with him.
Soon he began to miss the good Aunt Marie, for, generally, when he first awoke he had gone and got into bed with her. He held to the ramrod and sustained himself with manly reflections, whispering as they came to mind: "I'm going to be a man. I ain't no cry-baby. I'm going to kill bears and send the money to my father, an' my Uncle Silas will give me a rocking-horse an' a silver dofunny—he said he would."
He ceased to whisper. An imaginary bear had approached the foot of the bed just in time to save him, for the last of his reflections had been interrupted by little sobs. He struck bravely with the ramrod and felled the bear, and got out of bed and skinned him and hung his hide over the back of a chair. He found some potatoes in a sack beside the fireplace, and put down a row for the bear's body and some more for the feet and legs. Then he greased the bear's feet and got into bed again, for Sue had awoke and begun to cry.
"What's the matter?" he inquired.
"I want my Aunt Marie," the girl sobbed.
"Stop, Uncle Silas 'll hear you," said Socky.
"I don't care."
"I'd be 'shamed," the boy answered, his own voice trembling with suppressed emotion.
Since a talk he had had with his father the day before, he felt a large and expanding sense of responsibility for his sister. Just now an-idea occurred to him—why shouldn't he, in his own person, supply the deficiencies of the great man they had come to see?
"I'll be your Uncle Silas," he remarked. "I'm a man now, an' I've killed a bear."
"Where is he?"
"Dead on the floor there."
She covered her face with the blankets.
"I'm going to have a pair o' moccasins an' a rifle, an' I'll carry you on my b-back." He had stammered on the last word after the manner of his uncle.
Just then they heard a singular creaking outside the door, and before either had time to speak it was flung open. They were both sitting up in bed as their Uncle Silas entered.
"I tnum!" said he, cheerfully.
Suddenly he saw the bird and the books and the table-top and the potatoes and the ramrod and the hands of Socky. He whistled ruefully; his smile faded.
"W-well greased!" he said, looking down at the books and the bird.
He found a gun-rag and wiped up the oil as best he could.
"She'll r-raise—" The remark ended in a cough as he wiped the books. Then he covered them with an empty meal-bag.
The children began to dress while Strong went half-way up the ladder and called to Gordon, still asleep in the loft above. Then he sat on the bed and helped the boy and girl get their clothes buttoned..
"My little f-fawns!" he muttered, with a laugh.
He had sat up until one o'clock at work in his little shop by the light of a lantern. He had sawed some disks from a round beech log and bored holes in them. He had also made axles and a reach and tongue, and put them together. Then he had placed a cross-bar and a pivot on the front axle and fastened a starch-box over all. The result was a wagon, which he had arisen early to finish, and with which he had come to wake "the little fawns." Now, when they were dressed, he sat them side by side in the wagon-box and clattered off down the trail.
At first the children sat silent, oppressed as they were by the odor of bear's-oil, not yet entirely removed from their hands and faces. As the wagon proceeded they began to laugh and call the dog. Zeb peered from under the friendly cover of the boat, and gave a yearning bark which seemed to express regret, not wholly unmingled with accusation, that on account of other engagements he would be unable to accept their kind invitation. At the boat-house were soap and towel and glad deliverance from the flavor of the bear. On their return "Mis' Strong" met them at the door of the cook-tent. She raised both hands above her head.
"My album!" she gasped.
"T-y-ty!" the Emperor whispered.
"An' the book my mother gave me!" she exclaimed, her tone rising from despair to anger. "They're ruined—Silas Strong!"
"N-nonsense," said her brother, calmly.
"Nonsense!" she exclaimed, tauntingly. "Silas Strong, do you know what has been done to 'em?"
"G-greased," he answered, mildly. "D-do 'em good."
She ran into the cook-tent and returned with the sacred album. There was an odd menace in her figure as she displayed the book. She spread it open.
"Look at my grandfather!" she demanded.
The bear's-oil had added emphasis to a subtle, inherent suggestion of smothered profanity in the image of her ancestor. It had, as it were, given clearness to an expression of great physical discomfort.
"L-limber him up," said the Emperor, quite soberly.
Master and Gordon were now approaching. The former took off his hat and bowed to the indignant Sinth and blandly remarked, "Boneka, madam."
The men had begun to laugh. Sinth changed color. She looked down. A smile began to light her thin face. She turned away, repeated the magic word in a low voice, and added, "I forgive." She walked hurriedly through the cook-tent to her own quarters, and sat down and wept as if, in truth, the oil had entered her soul. It was, in a way, pathetic—her devotion to the tawdry plush and this poor shadow of her ancestor—and the historian has a respect for it more profound, possibly, than his words may indicate. She would have given her album for her friend, and it may be questioned if any man hath greater love than this.
When she entered the dinner-tent and sat down to stir batter for the excellent "flapjacks" of Lost River camp, the children came and kissed her and stood looking up into her face. Socky had begun to comprehend his relation to the trouble. Shame, guilt, and uncertainty were in his countenance. Urgent queries touching the use and taste and constitution of batter and its feeling on the index-finger of one's hand were pressing upon him, but he saw that, in common decency, they must be deferred.
"Aunt Sinthy," said the little Duke of Hillsborough.
"What?" she answered.
"I won't never grease your album again."
The woman laughed, placed the pan on the table, and put her arms around the child. Then she answered, in a tone of good-nature, "If it had been anything else in this world, I wouldn't have minded."
Just then Zeb slowly entered the cook-tent. He had got rid of some of the oil, but had acquired a cough. The hair on every leg was damp and matted. He seemed to doubt his fitness for social enjoyment. In a tentative manner he surveyed the breakfast-party, as if to study his effect upon the human species. The Emperor patted him and felt of his legs.
"What's the matter o' him?" Sinth inquired.
"G-greased!" said the Emperor, with a loud laugh, in which the campers joined, whereat the dog fled from the cook-tent.
"S-slippery mornin'!" Strong exclaimed, while he stood looking through the doorway.
"Hard t' keep yer feet," said Sinth, who had caught the contagion of good feeling which had begun to prevail. It was, indeed, a remark not without some spiritual significance.
So it befell: the spirit of that old chief whose body had long been given to the wooded hills came into Lost River camp.
Gordon hurried away after breakfast. While the children stood looking down the trail and waving their hands and weeping, Silas Strong ran past them two or three times with the noisy little wagon. Its consoling clatter silenced them. There had been a deep purpose in the heart of the Emperor while he spent half the night in his workshop. Gordon had laughingly explained the cause of their disappointment on arriving at Lost River camp. Strong was trying to recover their esteem.
"C-come on!" he shouted.
Soon Socky and Sue sat in the little wagon on their way to Catamount Pond with their Uncle Silas and the young fisherman.