Midwinter
To the Sunrise Camp Fire girls the closing in of winter about Tahawus
cabin brought a new experience of life. Never in the many seasons spent
together under varying conditions had they been so thrown upon their own
resources for happiness and growth!
Of the outside world of companionship and stimulation, they had no one
and nothing upon which they might depend, and this following two
eventful years in Europe during the close and in the months after the
great war.
Yet they had been told what they must expect, the quiet, the loneliness,
the shut-in-ness of their existence.
Discovering that her health made it unwise to attempt returning to the
stage during the winter, Mrs. Burton anticipated spending the winter
alone in the Adirondacks save for occasional visits from her husband and
Aunt Patricia, her sister and possibly her friend, Betty Graham.
However, Miss Patricia Lord had been first to decry an arrangement of
this character, protesting that since Polly O'Neill Burton appeared
unable to look after herself when she was _not_ ill, what could one
expect of her under other conditions! Personally she had no idea of
permitting her to make further trouble for her husband and friends. This
was of course Miss Patricia's fashion of confessing that nothing could
separate her from the individual she loved best in the world, so long as
her care, devotion and wealth could be of service.
Without Mrs. Burton's knowledge Captain Burton and Miss Patricia made a
journey to the Adirondacks, where they secured the lease of Tahawus
cabin for a year with the privilege of a longer term, and here, a few
weeks later, Mrs. Burton found herself established under Miss Patricia's
guardianship, her husband being forced to return to his work in
Washington.
The maid who accompanied them Miss Patricia soon dismissed, announcing
that she gave more trouble than assistance. And, although regretting her
loss, seeing that the girl herself was lonely and unhappy and unable to
live in peace with Miss Patricia, Mrs. Burton felt obliged to consent.
Later she made a number of efforts to secure another maid (Marie, who
had lived with her so many years, having been left behind in France),
but up to the present time no one had been discovered agreeable to Miss
Patricia.
Annoyed and unhappy over the amount of work Miss Patricia insisted upon
undertaking, Mrs. Burton found her protests and efforts toward aid both
set aside. Moreover, as rest was essential to her recovery, she dared
not undertake heavy tasks.
During the latter part of the summer and the early fall, therefore, she
and Miss Patricia lived alone at the cabin, although for various reasons
neither of them particularly content.
Miss Patricia's anxiety revealed itself in an increasing sternness and
solicitude which left her charge small opportunity for peace.
Mrs. Burton, who was not seriously ill so long as she was resting and in
a proper environment, oftentimes found herself lonely and restless, and
ashamed of her discontent.
She was surrounded with every comfort and a good deal of luxury. Her
room, twenty feet square, had four large windows facing the south and
west; the plastered walls were painted a pale yellow with curtains of a
deeper shade. Upholstered in yellow silk with half a dozen yellow and
brown silk curtains, was the couch Miss Patricia had ordered from New
York to be in keeping with the room. Supplies of magazines and books
were sent weekly from town, letters arrived in generous number,
occasionally a visitor appeared from one of the hotels or cottages a few
miles off, but oftentimes was sent away unseen by Mrs. Burton, Aunt
Patricia concluding that she were better left alone if the visitor
happened to be not a friend but an acquaintance merely desiring to do
homage to a famous woman.
Fortunately Miss Patricia looked with favor upon the physician who made
weekly calls upon his patient. Miss Lord had secured a cabin in this
particular neighborhood in order that the younger woman might be under
his care.
One afternoon during the first week in September, Miss Patricia and Mrs.
Burton were sitting in her bed-room between five and six o'clock. The
twilight was beginning to close gently in so that a single lamp was
lighted on a table which stood near Mrs. Burton's couch. Lying upon the
couch, she was holding a newspaper open in her hand, but at the moment
was not reading.
A few feet away Miss Patricia sat grimly hemming dish towels.
Neither had spoken in the last ten minutes, not since Dr. Larimer, after
an hour's visit, had driven away.
"You are an extremely entertaining companion, Polly. Do you realize you
scarcely have spoken to me all day, and yet you seemed to find a great
deal to discuss with Dr. Larimer; perhaps because he is a man and I am
only a woman."
Swiftly Mrs. Burton dropped the paper which had been hiding her face.
"I am so sorry, dear, to have been so stupid; I have been reading since
Dr. Larimer's visit. But it is unkind of you to say I preferred talking
to Dr. Larimer for such a reason, when you know what I wanted to discuss
with him."
"Yes, and his answer was exactly what I anticipated," Miss Patricia
answered severely, although her eyes were now searching the younger
woman's face. "Polly, I desire you to be truthful, even when the truth
appears less complimentary to me. In the last few minutes you have not
read a single line. I have been watching you and----"
The paper slid to the floor as Mrs. Burton sat up clasping her arms
about her knees. Her corded yellow silk gown with a soft fall of lace
about her throat had been put on in honor of the doctor's call; her
black hair was loosely coiled on top of her head, her cheeks too
brightly flushed, her blue eyes less clear than usual.
"Come and sit beside me, Aunt Patricia, please do as I want to make a
confession. It is true I have not been reading these last few minutes
because a few moments ago I read the announcement of a brilliant new
play produced in New York City last week and I was envious and
rebellious. Of course I really expected to have Dr. Larimer declare that
I must remain all winter in the mountains and yet I must have hoped he
would allow me to return to town after a few more months. I am sorry of
course, but really, Aunt Patricia, you must not bury yourself here with
me, when I am such a burden besides being a stupid companion."
"Don't talk nonsense, Polly, if you can avoid it," was Miss Patricia's
reply. Yet she came and seated herself on the couch beside the younger
woman, and by and by her arm was about her.
"See here, my child," she announced a few moments later, "the truth is,
I am neither lonely nor dissatisfied, but _you_ are. I am never unhappy
when I am with you. However, that is neither here nor there. Naturally
you need other companionship than an excessively disagreeable old woman.
Your husband cannot be with you this winter, his work makes it
impossible. I have been thinking for several days of an idea which I
discussed with the doctor this afternoon after his conversation with
you. Why not have your own Camp Fire girls to spend the winter at the
cabin with you? You are accustomed to them and they would keep you
interested and able to give less time to thinking of yourself. Dr.
Larimer has no objection; says you will grow stronger as soon as you are
in a more cheerful frame of mind. Would you like to have the girls,
dear, because if so, in the last ten moments before I reproached you for
not speaking, I had been planning a letter to each one of the girls
which I shall write to-night, once you are asleep."
"I am afraid they won't care to join us here, Aunt Patricia. The winter
will be so long and cold and at present the Camp Fire girls are in their
own homes. You must not on my account ask them to come to us; we shall
be happy alone, except now and then when I am especially tiresome."
However, at the mere suggestion Mrs. Burton's face had flushed, her eyes
were no longer clouded and a bit of her old animation had returned.
"Our invitation to the Sunrise Camp Fire girls shall not imply a favor
to us should they care to accept. I shall also tell them what they are
to expect," Miss Patricia added. "If they elect to spend a winter in the
Adirondack forest, it will be of benefit to their health as well as to
yours. Moreover, do not believe that I am issuing this invitation solely
on your account, Polly. More than I dreamed possible I am missing the
Camp Fire girls myself, particularly Vera and Alice, who are more
sensible than the others."
Later in the same evening, while Mrs. Burton lay half asleep on her
couch, seated not far away Miss Patricia Lord wrote her letters of
invitation. She kept her word; the letters mentioned the conditions the
girls would be forced to meet, the long cold, the quiet days and nights
and the fact that they could count on but little society or
entertainment save what they could create among themselves. However, the
cabin was comfortable and the surroundings beautiful. In only one line
did Miss Patricia betray the fact that she believed their Camp Fire
guardian's health might be improved by the companionship of the group of
girls who had meant so much to her in the past years.
Yet it may have been this line that represented the necessary influence,
or merely that the girls enjoyed the novelty of a winter in the North
woods.
Whatever the reason, October found them living together in their
accustomed fashion and now October had passed and November and it was
the first week of December.
So far, according to the woodsmen, the winter had been a remarkably open
one.
One Friday afternoon, soon after luncheon, Mary Gilchrist came out of
the cabin alone. A short time before Mrs. Burton, Mrs. Graham and
Marguerite Arnot had gone for a drive, the rough little pony they had
been using earlier in the season was now transferred from the carriage
to a sleigh.
Ordinarily the Camp Fire guardian preferred the girls not to go any
distance away from Tahawus cabin alone. So, as she had found it
difficult to secure a companion, Gill had no thought of being outdoors
more than an hour. Fresh air and exercise were essential to her health
and happiness.
Sally, who first had been asked to accompany her, disliking the cold and
none too fond of exercise, had pleaded the fact that she was busily
engaged in preparing mincemeat for the approaching Christmas holidays
and desired to go on with her task.
Bettina Graham, Gill preferred not to invite, believing that Bettina
would surely decline. Alice Ashton and Vera were at work on their
Christmas sewing and had a walk of several miles earlier in the day.
Promising Sally to bring back any winter berries or evergreens she might
discover, at three o'clock Gill set forth alone. She was dressed in a
short skirt and a gray fur coat and cap and was wearing snowshoes.
No snow had fallen for the past week and there was a hard layer of ice.
The afternoon was cloudless and brilliant, the sky above the tree tops
ravishingly blue.
A number of paths led away from the door of the cabin and Gill started
along one which came down to the edge of the lake. As the lake was
frozen over, she followed the line of the west shore for about half a
mile, gliding along on the ice, her cheeks tingling, her eyes sparkling
with the delight of the exercise and the exhilaration of the winter air.
Not in some time had she felt so serene. These past few weeks for
several reasons had been as uncomfortable ones as she ever cared to live
through. Fortunately she always had believed in the value of an outdoor
life to bring one to more cheerful views, even before her membership in
the Camp Fire had emphasized this truth.
Tiring of the smooth surface of the lake, at length Gill climbed a
snowdrift to enter a balsam forest which seemed to cover only a small
area before it opened into a clearing beyond.
At no great distance from their own cabin, Gill had no recollection at
the moment of this particular woods, perhaps because the winter
afternoon gave it a new and strange aspect.
She recognized that the trees were white pine, many of them fifty feet
in height with drooping long branches and five-fingered leaf bunches.
Beneath the trees the ground, soft with the needles at other seasons,
was to-day hard and white as a marble bed.
The arch of the trees formed a kind of natural temple with the opening
beyond like a great rose window seen through the intervening space.
As she approached the end of the vista Gill heard a noise which at first
startled and later on puzzled and troubled her. The noise was like the
barking of a dog in distress. She stood still, called and whistled only
to have the sound cease and then begin again with a deeper note of
suffering.
Continuing her walk, but more slowly, Gill moved in the direction from
which the barking came. In spite of what may have appeared to contradict
this fact, actually she was more attached to animals than any one of the
Camp Fire girls. Within another moment she had made a discovery. In a
trap set by a hunter a small red fox had been caught but not killed. The
barking to her ears had sounded like a dog's.
Notwithstanding its pain and terror and fear of human beings, it seemed
to Gill the little animal turned its red-brown eyes toward her with an
expression of appeal.
Several seconds the girl stood frowning and puzzled, all her color flown
and her lips trembling. Her own ignorance and cowardice formed the chief
barrier. The little animal's hind feet had been caught and nearly torn
from the body, and yet she was unable to open the trap or to relieve the
pain in any way, as she carried no weapon of any kind.
Gill set her teeth. Why not walk on or, a better plan, return to the
warmth and friendliness of the big cabin. Of a sudden she felt lonely
and vaguely uneasy here in the silent woods, the silence broken only by
the cry of a small animal in pain. Yet the pain could not continue
indefinitely, and in any event she could soon be out of sight and
hearing.
Gill's eyes dropped toward the ground. Immediately in her path she
beheld a heavy stick, from which the snow had blown away, leaving it
exposed to her gaze. A second only she hesitated, then picking it up
discovered that the end was round and thick as a bludgeon. She knew that
her eye and her aim were unswerving, yet the prospect of a moment's
swift action made her sick and faint.
The next Gill lifted her cudgel. With a quick stroke between the eyes
that were fastened half fearfully, half trustfully upon her own, the
little creature's suffering was ended.
Afterwards, absurd as it seemed to her, Gill could not walk on at once.
Instead she leaned against a nearby tree, closing her eyes to avoid the
spectacle before her. She could hunt without especial emotion or regret,
when her aim was steady and there was no suggestion of long pain or
suffering afterwards. But to kill, as she had felt herself forced to do
in the last few moments, had upset her in the most acute fashion.
Gill opened her eyes when she heard some one coming toward her.
"You seem to appear only when I am in the act of taking a life, Mr.
Drain," she exclaimed with poorly concealed bitterness, allowing her
state of mind to find expression in the tone of her voice. "I am sorry
to have you a witness to what I have just done and yet I felt it was
unavoidable."
"You have only accomplished what I have been trying to find courage to
do this last half hour, Miss Gilchrist. But you do look used up. My
little cabin is not an eighth of a mile away, won't you come in and rest
for a moment? I am sure your friends will not object. I am fairly
intimate with most of them except you. Somehow we never seem to meet
when I am at Tahawus cabin."