Making the Best of It
Quite a wave of excitement spread over the neighbourhood when the news
of Pam’s encounter with the lynxes got abroad. Hunting parties were
organized, and enthusiastic young men spent nights of watching in the
forest. When Nathan Gittins had three sheep mauled the excitement grew
to fever heat, everything else was let slide, and the district rose as
one man to rid the place of such a serious menace to property.
During these days neither Pam nor Sophy went beyond the few cleared
fields surrounding Ripple. Kindly neighbours visited them at intervals
of every two or three days to see that they wanted for nothing, bring
their mail, and take letters to post for them. The Doctor rode in that
direction when he had patients anywhere near, and Don showed a brotherly
devotion that set up some private wonders in the mind of Sophy. Of
course he had always been kind to her, and better than most brothers;
but she argued to herself that his conduct now was not according to
nature, and she was shrewd enough to guess that she was not the chief
reason of his many journeys across the forest from his father’s house at
The Corner. The Doctor lived at The Corner because it was the middle of
everything; and although it appeared to be misnamed, it had really been
so called because it stood at the angle or corner of the hill, just
where the creek went tearing down through a wooded defile to join the
river a little below Hunt’s Crossing.
At last the patience and perseverance of the hunters were rewarded, and
both of the great cats were killed. The dwellers at the lone farms lived
in peace after that, and children were able to go to school again. The
snow was thick in the forest now, and it was owing to their footmarks
that the wily animals had been tracked to their doom.
The day after the second lynx was killed a party of men, with Don
Grierson at their head, arrived at Ripple to bank the sides of the house
with snow. Pam enquired in a rather scared fashion of Sophy how much she
would be expected to pay for the work, but Sophy assured her that there
would be no charge. She might if she liked give them hot coffee all
round when the work was finished, but nothing else was either expected
or desired.
“Coffee and cakes it shall be, then!” exclaimed Pam, commencing to roll
her sleeves above her elbows. “I shall have to make the cakes, though,
for we have scarcely any in the house. I can manage it if I make haste.”
“Make soda-biscuit, that is the quickest,” said Sophy. “I will make up
the fire for you, and I can bring the things for you and wait upon you.
No, they won’t want you to help; it is hardly work for girls, and there
are enough of them to do the work comfortably. I see Nathan Gittins is
there, but I don’t think Mose Paget is among the lot. I wonder whether
he is better yet?”
“Is he ill? I had not heard.” Pam did not pause in her work, she was in
too much of a hurry for that; but she looked at Sophy with considerable
interest and some anxiety. She was remembering that she owed her life
twice over to the ragged, down-at-heel Mose Paget, who had the
reputation of being the very laziest man in the township.
“Mrs. Buckle told me that he was bad; that was when she was here the day
before yesterday. But of course she is such a kindly old soul that she
would say he was ill, even if it was only a lazy fit that was keeping
him from work.”
There was the sound of a crash outside at this minute, and Pam cried out
in alarm. But Sophy, who ran out to see what was the matter, came back
to say that it was nothing of great importance, only Don, who had been
on a ladder banking the snow, had taken a header into the drift he was
helping to pile higher. He was cut rather badly on the cheek, for he had
fallen on a shovel, and he came in to have his wound washed and
bandaged. Sophy cried out in dismay then, and she turned so white that
it was Pam who left her cake-making and ran to offer first aid.
“No, the sight of a cut does not frighten me very much,” she laughed, as
she dabbed the cut with a handkerchief dipped in warm water. “I have
three brothers, you see, so I have served an apprenticeship in looking
after cuts and hurts of all sorts.”
“It is a great pity that Mose Paget did not let you look after his hurts
a bit that time when the lynx clawed him.” Don winced as her hand came
down rather heavily on the wound, but she was too startled by what he
had said to notice that she had hurt him.
“Is Mose ill from his wounds, and is your father looking after him?” Her
eyes were anxious now, for she was in a measure responsible, or that was
how she felt.
“Mose has gone off to Fredericton, and he was going from there to St.
John, so Reggie Furness said this morning. Reggie is half-brother to
Mose, you know—a poor half-starved kid, who does chores for Miss
Gittins to earn his food. He told me this morning that Mose was real bad
from his hurts, and I guessed it was largely his own fault for not
keeping them clean.”
“We ought to have made him get them washed!” cried Pam in acute
distress. “He was so careful to clean the wounds of the dog, but he
would not hear of our doing anything for himself.”
“It was downright pig-headedness on his part; but he is like that, and
it is of no use to worry about it,” said Don, trying to put the best
face on the matter that he could.
Later on, when all the men came in and were gathered about the stove,
drinking coffee and eating the soda-biscuits hot from the oven, the talk
turned again to Mose Paget, and what his step-brother had said of his
condition.
“It would not be so serious if he had been better nourished and a
cleaner living man,” said Nathan Gittins, his voice sounding mumbled by
reason of his mouth being full of soda-biscuit. “But a whisky-drinking,
half-starved chap like that hasn’t a chance when it comes to a case of
blood-poisoning.”
“It is all my fault!” Pam’s voice was full of self-reproach. “I ought to
have insisted on his taking proper care. He saved my life twice on that
dreadful day, and I just let him alone when I might have looked after
him.”
“I should rather like to see the person who could make Mose Paget do
anything he did not want to do!” exclaimed Nathan with a great laugh,
which was promptly echoed by the other men. Then they proceeded to tell
Pam stories about the doings of Mose Paget, whose father had been a
mighty hunter, and had lost his life in an encounter with a bear.
“Mose has got courage of a sort,” said one man, between bites of hot
biscuit. “To me he always seems a good sort spoiled in the making. There
is what would have made a decent man, only so much laziness and
drunkenness is down underneath that it keeps coming up and spoiling
everything, don’t you see.”
The other men nodded in perfect accord with this pronouncement; then the
talk veered to other things—the latest news from Europe, the chances of
an extra severe winter, and the possibilities of grain-farming out west.
But Pam, darting to and fro waiting on these guests of hers who had come
to help her that day, kept repeating to herself that Mose had twice
saved her life in one day, and so deserved her warmest gratitude.
She went out later to see the effect of the snow-banking, and cried out
in dismay at the unsightly appearance of the house, which looked more
like a cutting by the side of a dug-out railway than anything.
“It is so dirty to look at!” she complained in confidence to Sophy, who
had followed her out.
“It will be all right next time it snows,” Sophy answered. “It is the
treading on it and the shovelling that make it look dirty. The frost
will not get in so easily, and a banked-up house is so much warmer than
one that is not banked. I think we ought to sleep downstairs at night
now, because of the stove. If you do not like to use your grandfather’s
room, we might put a bed in the best sitting-room.”
“We might use his room, then it would be aired if he should come back
suddenly,” Pam replied, then immediately thought how disastrous it would
be for him to come back with the responsibility of Sam Buckle’s death
hanging over him.
Sophy made no answer. She had tact and sympathy, and was too fond of Pam
to say or do anything which might add to the burden of her endurance.
There was a slow monotony about the days now, and the nights were so
long that some mornings it seemed as if the day would never dawn. The
outside work was very little now, for, acting on the advice of Nathan
Gittins, Pam had sold the sheep when the first snow came. It was not
wise to keep sheep through the winter in this forest district. If the
weather was very severe the wolves always gathered in bands, and a
sheepfold, however well protected, would offer no serious obstacles to
them. The pigs were also reduced in number, those that were left having
comfortable quarters at the end of the barn. The cow was in the barn for
a permanency during this bad weather, and the rooster with half a dozen
hens spent languid days in picking up crumbs at the door of the house,
or standing idly on one leg in the sunshine when there was any.
The money from the sale of the pigs had been lodged with the storekeeper
at The Corner. That was Sophy’s wisdom. The storekeeper had two prices
for everything, one rather high for the people who wanted credit, the
other very reasonable indeed for the people who were able to lodge money
with him at the beginning of the winter. The difference would mean the
saving of many dollars at the end of the winter. As she was there to
guard the interests of her grandfather, Pam felt justified in spending
so much of his money on necessaries. The money she was to receive for
the twenty acres of lumber would be banked for her grandfather’s use
should he come back to need it. Mrs. Buckle would not take back the
twenty dollars she had lent to Pam to meet the needs of the old man if
he should return, and that money was kept in the house to be handy if
required.
Pam spent laborious hours in the barn, sawing wood to keep the stoves
going. Never had she realized what a lot of wood one stove could consume
in twelve or fifteen hours, and when it became necessary to have a fire
at night also, wood-cutting bade fair to become her sole occupation. But
it was fine, healthy work, and it sent her to bed so tired that she
slept without dreams until morning, and that was surely worth while,
considering the unprotected condition of herself and Sophy.
It had been snowing for two days without stopping—not a raging
blizzard, but a steady downfall, which had piled a thick layer of the
most dazzling white all over the banked-up house, and had weighed down
the forest trees until the air was filled with the creaking, groaning,
and snapping of straining branches.
“Will anyone ever come near us again, do you expect? And were you ever
shut up in such a fashion before?” demanded Pam, as they sat down to
breakfast on the third morning of their isolation.
“I have had it worse that this,” Sophy answered. She was looking
radiantly content this morning. It was mail-day, and there would
probably be a letter for her from George Lester, who was serving in the
Mounted Police out in the wild Skeena country.
“Worse?” Pam’s eyebrows went up. To her it did not seem possible that
there could be anything worse than this white imprisonment, walled in on
every side, and with the silent but persistent fall of snow.
Sophy laughed, and nodded. “Two years ago I had to go over and keep
house for Aunt Marion while she went to Europe. She lives ever so far
from here, right away in the beech wood district beyond Selkirk. Her
husband, Uncle Horace, had to go to the town for stores. It came on to
snow as it has been doing these last two days, and he could not get
back, and I was alone with Leo and Winnie, the two children. Leo was
ten, and Winnie six. The worst of it was, our stores were nearly out. We
had so little kerosene that we had to creep to bed when it got dark, and
stay there until daylight came again. We had no sugar, the flour was
almost out, and it was nearly a week before anyone could get through to
help us.”
“What did you do?” gasped Pam.
“Oh, the best we could. We told each other things. I taught the children
how to spell, and we recited the multiplication table every day. Their
father said their education had taken great strides by the time he came
home. It was just a question of making the best of it, and not worrying.
Of course, it was horrid being short of provisions, but we had potatoes,
a pail of lard, and some bacon, so we might have been worse off.”
“Sophy, you are one of the world’s splendid women, and I am just proud
to know you!” Pam sprang up from her seat as she spoke, and swept Sophy
a low bow. They were both laughing over her exaggerated deference when
Don came gliding out from the forest on snow-shoes, and they rushed to
the door to give him a welcome.
“I tried to get here last night, but the strap of my shoe broke, and as
I sank in over my knees, I knew that it was not safe to try.” Don was
modestly apologetic, but Sophy cried out in horror that he should have
even thought of risking his life in such a fashion.
“Father was out,” said Don. “He was called to a woman who was very ill
on the other side of the Ridge. He did not get home until dawn this
morning, and then Nathan Gittins came for him to go over to their place
and have a look at that boy, Reggie Furness. Nearly starved the poor kid
has been, I should fancy, since Mose Paget has been away. He has been
living on in their shack alone—‘doing for himself’ he called it; ‘doing
without’ would be a better way of expressing it, I fancy. He fainted
whilst he was doing chores at Gittins’ place yesterday, and Galena put
him to bed there. He didn’t get better as she hoped, and was off his
head a good bit in the night, and she was so scared about him that she
sent Nathan to get Father first thing this morning.”
“When is Mose coming back?” asked Sophy, who was making fresh coffee for
her brother, whilst Pam fried bacon at the stove.
“When he is better, I suppose,” replied Don. “He has had a near squeak
for his life, I should fancy, and it will take him a little while to get
over it. Reggie will be all right now he is with the Gittins, and Galena
will not let him go until Mose comes home. She is real kind-hearted,
only I always find that a little of her goes a long way; but she means
all right, and that is the chief thing. Here is your letter, sis, and
such a fat one! An industrious fellow is George, though it beats me what
he can find to say!”
Sophy took the letter with a look of positive rapture on her face, and
retired to the bedroom, where the fire was not yet out, to read it in
peace. This was just what Don wanted, and had counted upon. He liked to
talk to Pam best when no one else was by. But this morning she was
abstracted and rather dull, a wonderful thing for her. Don thought
perhaps it was because there were no letters for her, and he hastened to
cheer her by saying he did not believe the English mail was in, for they
had said at the post office that no European letters had been received.
“I was not thinking of letters,” replied Pam, and her smile was rather
wan. “Mother may not write this mail—she has not much time, you know.
Indeed, I always used to write her letters for her, and I think she must
miss me so dreadfully at the business, for she always hated writing. I
am feeling so bad about that poor Reggie Furness. I have never seen him,
but I am constantly hearing about him, and in a way I am responsible for
his having been left in such a plight. If I had only insisted on
cleansing his brother’s wounds, they would not have done so badly, and
then the poor boy would not have been left to such hardship.”
“Why not go a bit farther back when you are at it?” said Don
impatiently. “If Mose had only been a clean-living fellow, he might not
have been so susceptible to blood-poisoning. If only he had had a
pleasanter manner he would have accepted your offer of water and washed
his hurts himself. Oh, I have no patience with all the sentimental
sympathy that is wasted on that miserable pair!”
“All the same, you need not allow it to colour all your behaviour when
you appear in polite society,” remarked Pam demurely, whereat Don glared
at her in downright anger for a moment. Then they both burst out
laughing, and the air cleared at once. He offered to teach her to walk
on snow-shoes, and Pam, delighted at the prospect of getting out of
doors, ran to wrap up warmly.
Sophy came too, and for the next two hours there was riotous fun on the
open space before the house. The snow was so soft that every spill meant
floundering in billowy clouds of white dust. Pam went down so many times
that at the end of the lesson she declared herself tired out. But she
had learned to stand erect, to pass one foot before the other, and then
to poise herself properly for the next step, so that she was fairly well
over the worst drudgery of learning to walk on snow-shoes.
“The snow will pack in a few days, then you will get on fine!” said Don,
who was proud of his pupil.
“Pack? Do you mean that it will go away?” she asked with a bewildered
air.
“It won’t go away under normal conditions before March or April. By
packing, we mean settling down in a close and firm mass. After a few
weeks it gets so hard anyone can walk on it without sinking in, even if
he has no snow-shoes. That is when life begins to get worth living in
these parts. We have parties nearly every night, and we contrive to see
more of each other than can be managed in all the rest of the year.” Don
found himself growing almost eloquent under the spell of Pam’s
interested face, and he launched into a vigorous account of the
pleasures of winter parties that lasted until he had to go.
“Your brother must think that I am made of queer stuff if he imagines
that I am going here and there enjoying myself this winter,” said Pam,
when Don had gone and the two girls were busy in the house again.
“I do not see that there is anything to prevent you from going round and
seeing folks when you have the chance,” Sophy answered, looking a little
surprised, for she knew what a social person Pam was, and she could not
understand the reason of her proposed abstinence from party-going.
“Do you think that people would care to have me at their parties when
they all know that my grandfather will have to stand his trial for
something that is next door to murder when he is found?” Pam’s tone was
very bitter. She had been musing a great deal during these days of
isolation, and the result was that deep down in her heart she was
getting absolutely scared at the thought of going about and seeing
people. Going to church at The Corner, once a fortnight, was bad enough,
but then it was possible to sit at the back and to leave early.
Church-going could not be called social intercourse either, and the less
she had to do with her neighbours while she was under a cloud the
better.
But Sophy only laughed, and putting her hands on Pam’s shoulders gave
her a gentle shake.
“As if anyone thought the worse of you for a thing you cannot help!
Besides, we all want to make much of you for the dear, plucky way in
which you have tackled a difficult situation. You will have to find a
better excuse than that if you want to be unsociable!”