NEIGHBORS
Four days later they stood on the deck of a grimy little steamer
breasting the outgoing tide that surged through the First Narrows.
Wooded banks on either hand spread dusky green in the hot August sun.
On their left glinted the roofs and white walls of Hollyburn, dear to
the suburban heart. Presently they swung around Brockton Point, and
Vancouver spread its peninsular clutter before them. Tugs and launches
puffed by, about their harbor traffic. A ferry clustered black with
people hurried across the inlet. But even above the harbor noises,
across the intervening distance they could hear the vibrant hum of the
industrial hive.
"Listen to it," said Bill. "Like surf on the beaches. And, like the
surf, it's full of treacherous undercurrents, a bad thing to get into
unless you can swim strong enough to keep your head above water."
"You're a thoroughgoing pessimist," she smiled.
"No," he shook his head. "I merely know that it's a hard game to buck,
under normal conditions. We're of the fortunate few, that's all."
"You're not going to spoil the pleasure that's within your reach by
pondering the misfortunes of those who are less lucky, are you?" she
inquired curiously.
"Not much," he drawled. "Besides, that isn't my chief objection to
town. I simply can't endure the noise and confusion and the manifold
stinks, and the universal city attitude--which is to gouge the other
fellow before he gouges you. Too much like a dog fight. No, I haven't
any mission to remedy social and economic ills. I'm taking the
egotistic view that it doesn't concern me, that I'm perfectly justified
in enjoying myself in my own way, seeing that I'm in a position to do
so. We're going to take our fun as we find it. Just the same," he
finished thoughtfully, "I'd as soon be pulling into that ranch of ours
on the hurricane deck of a right good horse as approaching Vancouver's
water front. This isn't any place to spend money or to see anything.
It's a big, noisy, over-grown village, overrun with business exploiters
and real-estate sharks. It'll be a city some day. At present it's
still in the shambling stage of civic youth."
In so far as Hazel had observed upon her former visit, this, if a
trifle sweeping, was in the main correct. So she had no regrets when
Bill confined their stay to the time necessary to turn his gold into a
bank account, and allow her to buy a trunkful, more or less, of pretty
clothes. Then they bore on eastward and halted at Ashcroft. Bill had
refused to commit himself positively to a date for the eastern
pilgrimage. He wanted to see the cabin again. For that matter she
did, too--so that their sojourn there did not carry them over another
winter. That loomed ahead like a vague threat. Those weary months in
the Klappan Range had filled her with the subtle poison of discontent,
for which she felt that new scenes and new faces would prove the only
antidote.
"There's a wagon road to Fort George," he told her. "We could go in
there by the B. X. steamers, but I'm afraid we couldn't buy an outfit
to go on. I guess a pack outfit from the end of the stage line will be
about right."
From Ashcroft an auto stage whirled them swiftly into the heart of the
Cariboo country--to Quesnelle, where Bill purchased four head of horses
in an afternoon, packed, saddled, and hit the trail at daylight in the
morning.
It was very pleasant to loaf along a passable road mounted on a
light-footed horse, and Hazel enjoyed it if for no more than the
striking contrast to that terrible journey in and out of the Klappan.
Here were no heartbreaking mountains to scale. The scourge of flies
was well-nigh past. They took the road in easy stages,
well-provisioned, sleeping in a good bed at nights, camping as the
spirit moved when a likely trout stream crossed their trail, venison
and grouse all about them for variety of diet and the sport of hunting.
So they fared through the Telegraph Range, crossed the Blackwater, and
came to Fort George by way of a ferry over the Fraser.
"This country is getting civilized," Bill observed that evening. "They
tell me the G. T. P. has steel laid to a point three hundred miles east
of here. This bloomin' road'll be done in another year. They're
grading all along the line. I bought that hundred and sixty acres on
pure sentiment, but it looks like it may turn out a profitable business
transaction. That railroad is going to flood this country with
farmers, and settlement means a network of railroads and skyrocketing
ascension of land values."
The vanguard of the land hungry had already penetrated to Fort George.
Up and down the Nachaco Valley, and bordering upon the Fraser, were the
cabins of the preëmptors. The roads were dotted with the teams of the
incoming. A sizable town had sprung up around the old trading post.
"They come like bees when the rush starts," Bill remarked.
Leaving Fort George behind, they bore across country toward Pine River.
Here and there certain landmarks, graven deep in Hazel's recollection,
uprose to claim her attention. And one evening at sunset they rode up
to the little cabin, all forlorn in its clearing.
The grass waved to their stirrups, and the pigweed stood rank up to the
very door.
Inside, a gray film of dust had accumulated on everything, and the
rooms were oppressive with the musty odors that gather in a closed,
untenanted house. But apart from that it stood as they had left it
thirteen months before. No foot had crossed the threshold. The pile
of wood and kindling lay beside the fireplace as Bill had placed it the
morning they left.
"'Be it ever so humble,'" Bill left the line of the old song
unfinished, but his tone was full of jubilation. Between them they
threw wide every door and window. The cool evening wind filled the
place with sweet, pine-scented air. Then Bill started a blaze roaring
in the black-mouthed fireplace--to make it look natural, he said--and
went out to hobble his horses for the night.
In the morning they began to unpack their household goods. Rugs and
bearskins found each its accustomed place upon the floor. His books
went back on the shelves. With magical swiftness the cabin resumed its
old-home atmosphere. And that night Bill stretched himself on the
grizzly hide before the fireplace, and kept his nose in a book until
Hazel, who was in no humor to read, fretted herself into something
approaching a temper.
"You're about as sociable as a clam," she broke into his absorption at
last.
He looked up in surprise, then chucked the volume carelessly aside, and
twisted himself around till his head rested in her lap.
"Vot iss?" he asked cheerfully. "Lonesome? Bored with yourself?
Ain't I here?"
"Your body is," she retorted. "But your spirit is communing with those
musty old philosophers."
"Oh, be good--go thou and do likewise," he returned impenitently. "I'm
tickled to death to be home. And I'm fairly book-starved. It's fierce
to be deprived of even a newspaper for twelve months. I'll be a year
getting caught up. Surely you don't feel yourself neglected because I
happen to have my nose stuck in a book?"
"Of course not!" she denied vigorously. The childish absurdity of her
attitude struck her with sudden force. "Still, I'd like you to talk to
me once in a while."
"'Of shoes and ships and sealing wax; of cabbages and kings,'" he flung
at her mischievously. "I'll make music; that's better than mere words."
He picked up his mandolin and tuned the strings. Like most things
which he set out to do, Bill had mastered his instrument, and could
coax out of it all the harmony of which it was capable. He seemed to
know music better than many who pass for musicians. But he broke off
in the midst of a bar.
"Say, we could get a piano in here next spring," he said. "I just
recollected it. We'll do it."
Now, this was something that she had many a time audibly wished for.
Yet the prospect aroused no enthusiasm.
"That'll be nice," she said--but not as she would have said it a year
earlier. Bill's eyes narrowed a trifle, but he still smiled. And
suddenly he stepped around behind her chair, put both hands under her
chin, and tilted her head backward.
"Ah, you're plumb sick and tired to death of everything, aren't you?"
he said soberly. "You've been up here too long. You sure need a
change. I'll have to take you out and give you the freedom of the
cities, let you dissipate and pink-tea, and rub elbows with the mob for
a while. Then you'll be glad to drift back to this woodsy hiding-place
of ours. When do you want to start?"
"Why, Bill!" she protested.
But she realized in a flash that Bill could read her better than she
could read herself. Few of her emotions could remain long hidden from
that keenly observing and mercilessly logical mind. She knew that he
guessed where she stood, and by what paths she had gotten there. Trust
him to know. And it made her very tender toward him that he was so
quick to understand. Most men would have resented.
"I want to stack a few tons of hay," he went on, disregarding her
exclamation. "I'll need it in the spring, if not this winter. Soon as
that's done we'll hit the high spots. We'll take three or four
thousand dollars, and while it lasts we'll be a couple of--of
high-class tramps. Huh? Does it sound good?"
She nodded vigorously.
"High-class tramps," she repeated musingly.
"That sounds fine."
"Perk up, then," he wheedled.
"Bill-boy," she murmured, "you mustn't take me too seriously."
"I took you for better or for worse," he answered, with a kiss. "I
don't want it to turn out worse. I want you to be contented and happy
here, where I've planned to make our home. I know you love me quite a
lot, little person. Nature fitted us in a good many ways to be mates.
But you've gone through a pretty drastic siege of isolation in this
rather grim country, and I guess it doesn't seem such an alluring place
as it did at first. I don't want you to nurse that feeling until it
becomes chronic. Then we would be out of tune, and it would be good-by
happiness. But I think I know the cure for your malady."
That was his final word. He deliberately switched the conversation
into other channels.
In the morning he began his hay cutting. About eleven o'clock he threw
down his scythe and stalked to the house.
"Put on your hat, and let's go investigate a mystery," said he. "I
heard a cow bawl in the woods a minute ago. A regular barnyard bellow."
"A cow bawling?" she echoed. "Sure? What would cattle be doing away
up here?"
"That's what I want to know?" Bill laughed. "I've never seen a cow
north of the Frazer--not this side of the Rockies, anyway."
They saddled their horses, and rode out in the direction from whence
had arisen the bovine complaint. The sound was not repeated, and Hazel
had begun to chaff Bill about a too-vivid imagination when within a
half mile of the clearing he pulled his horse up short in the middle of
a little meadow.
"Look!"
The track of a broad-tired wagon had freshly crushed the thick grass.
Bill squinted at the trail, then his gaze swept the timber beyond.
"Well!"
"What is it, Bill?" Hazel asked.
"Somebody has been cutting timber over there," he enlightened. "I can
see the fresh ax work. Looks like they'd been hauling poles. Let's
follow this track a ways."
The tiny meadow was fringed on the north by a grove of poplars. Beyond
that lay another clear space of level land, perhaps forty acres in
extent. They broke through the belt of poplars--and pulled up again.
On one side of the meadow stood a cabin, the fresh-peeled log walls
glaring yellow in the sun, and lifting an earth-covered roof to the
autumn sky. Bill whistled softly.
"I'll be hanged," he uttered, "if there isn't the cow!"
Along the west side of the meadow ran a brown streak of sod, and down
one side of this a man guided the handles of a plow drawn by the
strangest yokemates Hazel's eyes had seen for many a day.
"For goodness' sake!" she exclaimed.
"That's the true pioneer spirit for you," Bill spoke absently. "He has
bucked his way into the heart of a virgin country, and he's breaking
sod with a mule and a cow. That's adaptation to environment with a
vengeance--and grit."
"There's a woman, too, Bill. And see--she's carrying a baby!" Hazel
pointed excitedly. "Oh, Bill!"
"Let's go over." He stirred up his horse. "What did I tell you about
folk that hanker for lots of elbow-room? They're coming."
The man halted his strangely assorted team to watch them come. The
woman stood a step outside the door, a baby in her arms, another
toddler holding fast to her skirt. A thick-bodied, short,
square-shouldered man was this newcomer, with a round, pleasant face.
"Hello, neighbor!" Bill greeted.
The plowman lifted his old felt hat courteously. His face lit up.
"_Ach_!" said he. "Neighbor. Dot iss a goot vord in diss country vere
dere iss no neighbor. But I am glat to meet you. Vill you come do der
house und rest a v'ile?"
"Sure!" Bill responded. "But we're neighbors, all right. Did you
notice a cabin about half a mile west of here? That's our place--when
we're at home."
"So?" The word escaped with the peculiar rising inflection of the
Teuton. "I haf saw dot cabin veil ve come here. But I dink it vass
abandon. Und I pick dis place mitout hope off a neighbor. Id iss goot
lant. Veil, let us to der house go. Id vill rest der mule--und
Gretchen, der cow. Hah!"
He rolled a blue eye on his incongruous team, and grinned widely.
"Come," he invited; "mine vife vill be glat."
They found her a matron of thirty-odd; fresh-cheeked, round-faced like
her husband, typically German, without his accent of the Fatherland.
Hazel at once appropriated the baby. It lay peacefully in her arms,
staring wide-eyed, making soft, gurgly sounds.
"The little dear!" Hazel murmured.
"Lauer, our name iss," the man said casually, when they were seated.
"Wagstaff, mine is," Bill completed the informal introduction.
"So?" Lauer responded. "Id hass a German sount, dot name, yes."
"Four or five generations back," Bill answered. "I guess I'm as
American as they make 'em."
"I am from Bavaria," Lauer told him. "Vill you shmoke? I light mine
bibe--mit your vife's permission."
"Yes," he continued, stuffing the bowl of his pipe with a stubby
forefinger, "I am from Bavaria. Dere I vass upon a farm brought oop.
I serf in der army my dime. Den Ameriga. Dere I marry my vife, who is
born in Milvaukee. I vork in der big brreweries. Afder dot I learn to
be a carpenter. Now I am a kink, mit a castle all mine own, I am no
more a vage slafe."
He laughed at his own conceit, a great, roaring bellow that filled the
room.
"You're on the right track," Bill nodded. "It's a pity more people
don't take the same notion. What do you think of this country, anyway?"
"It iss goot," Lauer answered briefly, and with unhesitating certainty.
"It iss goot. Vor der boor man it iss--it iss salfation. Mit fife
huntret tollars und hiss two hants he can himself a home make--und a
lifing be sure off."
Beside Hazel Lauer's wife absently caressed the blond head of her
four-year-old daughter.
"No, I don't think I'll ever get lonesome," she said. "I'm too glad to
be here. And I've got lots of work and my babies. Of course, it's
natural I'd miss a woman friend running in now and then to chat. But a
person can't have it all. And I'd do anything to have a roof of our
own, and to have it some place where our livin' don't depend on a pay
envelope. Oh, a city's dreadful, I think, when your next meal almost
depends on your man holdin' his job. I've lived in town ever since I
was fifteen. I lost three babies in Milwaukee--hot weather, bad air,
bad milk, bad everything, unless you have plenty of money. Many a time
I've sat and cried, just from thinkin' how bad I wanted a little place
of our own, where there was grass and trees and a piece of ground for a
garden. And I knew we'd never be able to buy it. We couldn't get
ahead enough."
"Und so," her husband took up the tale, "I hear off diss country, vere
lant can be for noddings got. Und so we scrape und pinch und safe
nickels und dimes for fife year. Und here ve are. All der vay from
Visconsin in der vaigon, yes. Mit two mules. In Ashcroft I buy der
cow, so dot ve haf der fresh milk. Und dot iss lucky. For von mule
iss die on der road. So I am plow oop der lant und haul my vaigon mit
von mule und Gretchen, der cow."
Hazel had a momentary vision of unrelated hardships by the way, and she
wondered how the man could laugh and his wife smile over it. She knew
the stifling heat of narrow streets in mid-summer, and the hungry
longing for cool, green shade. She had seen something of a city's
poverty. But she knew also the privations of the trail. Two thousand
miles in a wagon! And at the journey's end only a rude cabin of
logs--and years of steady toil. Isolation in a huge and lonely land.
Yet these folk were happy. She wondered briefly if her own viewpoint
were possibly askew. She knew that she could not face such a prospect
except in utter rebellion. Not now. The bleak peaks of the Klappan
rose up before her mind's eye, the picture of five horses dead in the
snow, the wolves that snapped and snarled over their bones. She
shuddered. She was still pondering this when she and Bill dismounted
at home.