For weeks after the Lost Farm folk returned from the hunting that had
ended so disastrously, Beelzebub wandered about the camp and the stable,
poking his broad, sleek fighting-face into odd corners, and mewing
plaintively as each nook disclosed an emptiness that he could not
understand. Finally, he gave up looking for his vanished friend. When
the snow came he resumed his old place beside the kitchen stove,
philosophically dozing away the long winter days in luxurious content.
One December afternoon, as Avery sat weaving the mesh of a snowshoe,
Beelzebub stretched himself, yawned, and sidled over to the old man. He
crouched and sprang to his lap, rubbing a black nose ingratiatingly
against his sleeve.
"Wal, Beelzebub, what's ailin' you now? Lonesome with jest me here? Wal,
Dave and Swickey's comin' back afore long." He glanced at the clock.
"Int'rested in this here snowshoe? No. Don't like the smell of it, hey?
What be you askin' fur? Smoke? Wal, Smoke's gone huntin'--up a long
trail where huntin' 's easy and they's lots of it. Now I reckon you
better hop down ag'in so 's I kin finish this here job. Thar!"
The big cat rubbed sinuously against a table leg, circled the room, and
crouched beside the stove again.
"Wouldn't mind bein' a cat myself," soliloquized Avery. "Nothin' to do
but eat and sleep and feel plumb sat'sfied with everything. 'Specially a
he cat what ain't got no young ones to raise and nuss. But it's
diff'runt with me. Now, there's my Swickey--but what's the good of
talkin'! Young folks is goin' to do jest the same as their pas and mas
done, if they don't do no wuss."
The old man bent busily over the racquette, which was nearly completed.
Finally, he tossed it to the floor and stood up, pushing back his
spectacles and yawning sonorously.
"Wal, it do beat the old scortch how things keeps a-proddin' a man to
keep him movin'. A'ter suthin' happens and he ain't got nuthin' to do
but jest live and wait fur--wal, gits settled kind of easy and
comf'table a'ter one shakin' up, long comes suthin' unexpected-like and
says, 'Here, you're takin' it too all-fired easy'; and then, like
enough, he gits over thet, and gits settled ag'in, and afore he's got
his feet on the stove and his pipe lit, long comes, wal, mebby a railrud
and runs slam-bang through a feller's barn. Now, he's either got to hire
a man to open and shet the doors every time a train comes
rippety-clickin' through or sell out and move on like a Injun. And if
the hired man happened to fergit to open the door--suthin' 'ud git
busted, so I reckon we'll sell out and move over to Timberland, hey,
Beelzebub?"
"Yas," he continued, moving to the window, "young folks likes new things
and ole folks likes ole things and both on 'em likes to live as long as
they kin, even if they be some one over yonder, back of them clouds up
thar on the mountain, callin' and callin' like as if they'd been
expectin' a feller fur a long time. Wal, I reckon it ain't a-goin' to be
a long time afore Swickey comes blushin' up to her Pop and says she's
a-goin' away fur a spell--with Dave. Things are pintin' thet way,
howcome they ain't _said_ nothin' yit. Shucks! but I be gettin' as fussy
as a hen sca'd offen eggs. God-A'mighty never set out to make a better
man than Dave, or a healthier gal than my Swickey, and come so clus to
finishin' the job. 'Course, Dave come from the city--thet's the only
thing ag'in' him marryin' my gal, fur she ain't never goin' to be like
them city kind; howcome he says he ain't a-goin' back ag'in to stay, and
he never bruk his word yit. Wal, they'll git married and raise half a
dozen strappin' fine young ones, like as not, and they's things wuss
than thet happenin' every day. Reckon I ought to be as happy as a
pockapine in a bar'l of apples, but I ain't. Feel like as if I was
losin' suthin' I was never goin' to git back ag'in.
"Used to calc'late if I had a lot of money, they'd be nothin' to fuss
about. Now I got money and more a-comin' in and it's jest good for
buyin' vittles and buildin' houses and sech, and gettin' things ready to
be comf'table in, but thar's jest where it lays back and folds its hands
and says, 'Now go ahead and _be_ comf'table'--and thet's diff'runt."
The big iron kettle on the stove simmered contentedly. Avery rammed a
stick of wood into the fire and poked the door shut with another. The
short winter afternoon crept into the sombre cavern of the forest, and
each pallid star took on a keener edge as twilight swiftly lost itself
in the dusk of a December night. Over the silence came the sound of
voices--a laugh--and Avery was at the door.
"Here they be, Beelzebub!" he exclaimed, "racin' fur the camp like a
couple of young ones thet's killed a snake."
"That's not fair!" cried Swickey, as she stumbled, and David passed her,
a cloud of silvery dust swirling up from his snowshoes.
He turned back, laughing, and helped her from the drift. "Now, we'll
start again. Are you ready--one--two--three!"
He allowed her a generous start and she beat him to the doorway.
"Hello, Pop!" she panted, as she stooped to unlace the snowshoes. "My!
but that was fun. We raced from the edge of the woods all the way up
here, and I beat Dave."
"Yes, she got ahead of me," said David, as with a lift of his foot and a
twist of his ankle he freed himself from his snowshoes.
"You must teach me that hitch, Dave. I always have to unfasten mine."
"That's the Micmac hitch. My old guide Tommy showed me that," replied
David, picking up the racquettes and entering the house with Swickey.
"What was you racin' fur?--Supper?" queried Avery, winking at David.
Swickey glanced at David and laughed. "He will tell you, Pop. He lost."
"I think the winner should treat, don't you, Avery?"
"Sure certain!"
"All right," said Swickey, unbuttoning her coat and tossing it to a
chair. She ran to her father and kissed him.
"Huh! You didn't race _goin'_ to Jim's, did you?" said the old man,
holding her at arm's length and admiring her deepening color. Her eyes
brimmed with mischief.
"If you will let me go, I'll tell," she replied, assuming a childish
seriousness that made him laugh. She slipped from him and ran to her
room. In the doorway she turned and, putting her finger on her lips,
cast an absurdly penitential glance toward the floor. "Yes, we did race
going down, and Dave won."
"Did the winner treat--?" began Avery.
"Mrs. Cameron was home," replied Swickey evasively. "Jim had gone to
Tramworth. The sheriff sent for him. But I'm going to change my
stockings. Ask Dave." And she closed the door.
"Jest like ole times--Swickey cuttin' up and actin' like the leetle
Swickey ag'in."
"Better than that," said David absent-mindedly. Then, aware of Avery's
twinkling eye, he added, "That is--Swickey--you know Smoke--she felt
badly--"
"Ya-a-s," drawled Avery. "I reckon I know, and I'm pow'ful glad things
is as they be."
After supper Swickey lay stretched lazily on a camp-blanket near the
stove, with Beelzebub purring a satisfied monotone as he lay curled in
the hollow of her arm. Avery questioned David as to Cameron's absence
from home.
"I don't know," replied David. "Mrs. Cameron said the sheriff sent for
him. Must be something important or he would have come up to see Jim
himself."
"Thet Curious Jim's a queer cuss, always interestin' hisself in other
folkses business--howcome they ain't nothin' mean about Jim."
"Maybe it's about Fisty Harrigan," said Swickey. "Mrs. Cameron said
Fisty had been laying around Tramworth, drinking and making threats
against--Dave." She glanced up at him, and he smiled reassuringly. "And
Jim knows more about--that time--than any one else."
"Mrs. Cameron didn't favor me with her confidence," said David, as
Avery's eyes questioned him.
"Oh, well, you're only a man," said Swickey. "We talked about lots of
things."
"Didn't talk about racin' on snowshoes with Dave, did you?"
"Now, Pop, that's mean--after my telling you--before supper--"
Avery laughed in huge good-humor.
Swickey's head nodded and drooped to her arm. Beelzebub, disturbed,
stood up and arched his back, yawned, sat on his tail and, stretching
his sleek neck, licked her chin with a quick dab of his little red
tongue.
"Now--Dave--" murmured Swickey sleepily.
In the Homeric roar of laughter that made the cat jump over her and
flatten himself beneath the stove, she wakened, gazed about her, and
finally got up with considerable dignity and marched to her bedroom.