AFTER MANY DAYS
September and October trooped past, and as they marched the willow
thickets and poplar groves grew yellow and brown, and carpeted the
floor of the woods with fallen leaves. Shrub and tree bared gaunt
limbs to every autumn wind. Only the spruce and pine stood forth in
their year-round habiliments of green. The days shortened steadily.
The nights grew long, and bitter with frost. Snow fell, blanketing
softly the dead leaves. Old Winter cracked his whip masterfully over
all the North.
Day by day, between tasks, and often while she worked, Hazel's eyes
would linger on the edges of the clearing. Often at night she would
lift herself on elbow at some unexpected sound, her heart leaping wild
with expectation. And always she would lie down again, and sometimes
press her clenched hand to her lips to keep back the despairing cry.
Always she adjured herself to be patient, to wait doggedly as Bill
would have waited, to make due allowance for immensity of distance for
the manifold delays which might overtake a messenger faring across
those silent miles or a man hurrying to his home. Many things might
hold him back. But he would come. It was inconceivable that he might
not come.
Meantime, with only a dim consciousness of the fact, she underwent a
marvelous schooling in adaptation, self-restraint. She had work of a
sort, tasks such as every housewife finds self-imposed in her own home.
She was seldom lonely. She marveled at that. It was unique in her
experience. All her old dread of the profound silence, the pathless
forests which infolded like a prison wall, distances which seemed
impossible of span, had vanished. In its place had fallen over her an
abiding sense of peace, of security. The lusty storm winds whistling
about the cabin sang a restful lullaby. When the wolves lifted their
weird, melancholy plaint to the cold, star-jeweled skies, she listened
without the old shudder. These things, which were wont to oppress her,
to send her imagination reeling along morbid ways, seemed but a natural
aspect of life, of which she herself was a part.
Often, sitting before her glowing fireplace, watching a flame kindled
with her own hands with wood she herself had carried from the pile
outside, she pondered this. It defied her powers of self-analysis.
She could only accept it as a fact, and be glad. Granville and all
that Granville stood for had withdrawn to a more or less remote
background. She could look out over the frost-spangled forests and
feel that she lacked nothing--nothing save her mate. There was no
impression of transient abiding; no chafing to be elsewhere, to do
otherwise. It was home, she reflected; perhaps that was why.
A simple routine served to fill her days. She kept her house shining,
she cooked her food, carried in her fuel. Except on days of forthright
storm she put on her snowshoes, and with a little rifle in the crook of
her arm prowled at random through the woods--partly because it gave her
pleasure to range sturdily afield, partly for the physical brace of
exertion in the crisp air. Otherwise she curled comfortably before the
fire-place, and sewed, or read something out of Bill's catholic
assortment of books.
It was given her, also, to learn the true meaning of neighborliness,
that kindliness of spirit which is stifled by stress in the crowded
places, and stimulated by like stress amid surroundings where life is
noncomplex, direct, where cause and effect tread on each other's heels.
Every day, if she failed to drop into their cabin, came one of her
neighbors to see if all were well with her. Quite as a matter of
course Jake kept steadily replenished for her a great pile of firewood.
Or they would come, babies and all, bundled in furs of Jake's trapping,
jingling up of an evening behind the frisky bays. And while the bays
munched hay in Roaring Bill Wagstaff's stable, they would cluster about
the open hearth, popping corn for the children, talking, always with
cheerful optimism.
Behind Lauer's mild blue eyes lurked a mind that burrowed incessantly
to the roots of things. He had lived and worked and read, and,
pondering it all, he had summed up a few of the verities.
"Life, it iss giffen us, und ve must off it make der best ve can," he
said once to Hazel, fondling a few books he had borrowed to read at
home. "Life iss goot, yust der liffing off life, if only ve go not
astray afder der voolish dings--und if der self-breservation struggle
vears us not out so dot ve gannot enjoy being alife. So many iss
struggle und slave under terrible conditions. Und it iss largely
because off ignorance. Ve know not vot ve can do--und ve shrink vrom
der unknown. Here iss acres by der dousand vree to der man vot can off
it make use--und dousands vot liffs und dies und neffer hass a home.
Here iss goot, glean air--und in der shmoke und shmells und dirty
streets iss a ravage of tuberculosis. Der balance iss not true. Und
in der own vay der rich iss full off drouble--drunk mit eggcitement,
veary mit bleasures. Ach, der voods und mountains und streams, blenty
off food, und a kindly neighbor--iss not dot enough? Only der abnormal
vants more as dot. Und I dink der drouble iss largely dot der modern,
high-bressure cifilization makes for der abnormal, vedder a man iss a
millionaire or vorks in der brewery, contentment iss a state off der
mind--und if der mind vorks mit logic it vill content find in der
simple dings."
It sounded like a pronouncement of Bill's. But Lauer did not often
grow serious. Mostly he was jovially cheerful, and his wife likewise.
The North had emancipated them, and they were loyal to the source of
their deliverance. And Hazel understood, because she herself had found
the wild land a benefactor, kindly in its silence, restful in its
forested peace, a cure for sickness of soul. Twice now it had rescued
her from herself.
November and December went their appointed way--and still no word of
Bill. If now and then her pillow was wet she struggled mightily
against depression. She was not lonely in the dire significance of the
word--but she longed passionately for him. And she held fast to her
faith that he would come.
The last of the old year she went little abroad, ventured seldom beyond
the clearing. And on New Year's Eve Jake Lauer's wife came to the
cabin to stay.
Hazel sat up, wide awake, on the instant. There was not the slightest
sound. She had been deep in sleep. Nevertheless she felt, rather than
knew, that some one was in the living-room. Perhaps the sound of the
door opening had filtered through her slumber. She hesitated an
instant, not through fear, because in the months of living alone fear
had utterly forsaken her; but hope had leaped so often, only to fall
sickeningly, that she was half persuaded it must be a dream. Still the
impression strengthened. She slipped out of bed. The door of the
bedroom stood slightly ajar.
Bill stood before the fireplace, his shaggy fur cap pushed far back on
his head, his gauntlets swinging from the cord about his neck. She had
left a great bed of coals on the hearth, and the glow shone redly on
his frost-scabbed face. But the marks of bitter trail bucking, the
marks of frostbite, the stubby beard, the tiny icicles that still
clustered on his eyebrows; while these traces of hardship tugged at her
heart they were forgotten when she saw the expression that overshadowed
his face. Wonder and unbelief and longing were all mirrored there.
She took a shy step forward to see what riveted his gaze. And despite
the choking sensation in her throat she smiled--for she had taken off
her little, beaded house moccasins and left them lying on the bearskin
before the fire, and he was staring down at them like a man
fresh-wakened from a dream, unbelieving and bewildered.
[Illustration: Bill stood before the fireplace, his shaggy fur cap
pushed far back on his head.]
With that she opened the door and ran to him. He started, as if she
had been a ghost. Then he opened his arms and drew her close to him.
"Bill, Bill, what made you so long?" she whispered. "I guess it served
me right, but it seemed a never-ending time."
"What made me so long?" he echoed, bending his rough cheek down against
the warm smoothness of hers. "Lord, _I_ didn't know you wanted me. I
ain't no telepathist, hon. You never yeeped one little word since I
left. How long you been here?"
"Since last September." She smiled up at him. "Didn't Courvoiseur's
man deliver a message from me to the mine? Didn't you come in answer
to my note?"
"Great Caesar's ghost--since September--alone! You poor little girl!"
he murmured. "No, if you sent word to me through Courvoiseur I never
got it. Maybe something happened his man. I left the Klappan with the
first snow. Went poking aimlessly over around the Finlay River with a
couple of trappers. Couldn't settle down. Never heard a word from
you. I'd given you up. I just blew in this way by sheer accident.
Girl, girl, you don't know how good it is to see you again, to have
this warm body of yours cuddled up to me again. And you came right
here and planted yourself to wait till I turned up?"
"Sure!" She laughed happily. "But I sent you word, even if you never
got it. Oh, well, it doesn't matter. Nothing matters now. You're
here, and I'm here, and-- Oh, Billy-boy, I was an awful pig-headed
idiot. Do you think you can take another chance with me?"
"Say"--he held her off at arm's length admiringly--"do you want to know
how strong I am for taking a chance with you? Well, I was on my way
out to flag the next train East, just to see--just to see if you still
cared two pins; to see if you still thought your game was better than
mine."
"Well, you don't have to take any eastbound train to find that out,"
she cried gayly. "I'm here to tell you I care a lot more than any
number of pins. Oh, I've learned a lot in the last six months, Bill.
I had to hurt myself, and you, too. I had to get a jolt to jar me out
of my self-centered little orbit. I got it, and it did me good. And
it's funny. I came back here because I thought I ought to, because it
was our home, but rather dreading it. And I've been quite contented
and happy--only hungry, oh, so dreadfully hungry, for you."
Bill kissed her.
"I didn't make any mistake in you, after all," he said. "You're a real
partner. You're the right stuff. I love you more than ever. If you
made a mistake you paid for it, like a dead-game sport. What's a few
months? We've all our life before us, and it's plain sailing now we've
got our bearings again."
"Amen!" she whispered. "I--but, say, man of mine, you've been on the
trail, and I know what the trail is. You must be hungry. I've got all
kinds of goodies cooked in the kitchen. Take off your clothes, and
I'll get you something to eat."
"I'll go you," he said. "I am hungry. Made a long mush to get here
for the night. I got six huskies running loose outside, so if you hear
'em scuffing around you'll know it's not the wolves. Say, it was some
welcome surprise to find a fire when I came in. Thought first somebody
traveling through had put up. Then I saw those slippers lying there.
That was sure making me take notice when you stepped out."
He chuckled at the recollection. Hazel lit the lamp, and stirred up
the fire, plying it with wood. Then she slipped a heavy bath-robe over
her nightgown and went into the chilly kitchen, emerging therefrom
presently with a tray of food and a kettle of water to make coffee.
This she set on the fire. Wherever she moved Bill's eyes followed her
with a gleam of joy, tinctured with smiling incredulousness. When the
kettle was safely bestowed on the coals, he drew her on his knee.
There for a minute she perched in rich content. Then she rose.
"Come very quietly with me, Bill," she whispered, with a fine air of
mystery. "I want to show you something."
"Sure! What is it?" he asked.
"Come and see," she smiled, and took up the lamp. Bill followed
obediently.
Close up beside her bed stood a small, square crib. Hazel set the lamp
on a table, and turning to the bundle of blankets which filled this new
piece of furniture, drew back one corner, revealing a round,
puckered-up infant face.
"For the love of Mike!" Bill muttered. "Is it--is it--"
"It's our son," she whispered proudly. "Born the tenth of
January--three weeks ago to-day. Don't, don't--you great bear--you'll
wake him."
For Bill was bending down to peer at the tiny morsel of humanity, with
a strange, abashed smile on his face, his big, clumsy fingers touching
the soft, pink cheeks. And when he stood up he drew a long breath, and
laid one arm across her shoulders.
"Us two and the kid," he said whimsically. "It should be the hardest
combination in the world to bust. Are you happy, little person?"
She nodded, clinging to him, wordlessly happy. And presently she
covered the baby's face, and they went back to sit before the great
fireplace, where the kettle bubbled cheerfully and the crackling blaze
sent forth its challenge to the bevy of frost sprites that held high
revel outside.
And, after a time, the blaze died to a heap of glowing embers, and the
forerunning wind of a northeast storm soughed and whistled about a
house deep wrapped in contented slumber, a house no longer divided
against itself.