There came, with August, a perceptible shortening of the days. Cooler
nights gave warning that the brief Canadian summer was nearing its end.
Pats labored on the raft, but the work was long. A float that would bear
in safety two people down the river's current--and possibly out to
sea--demanded size and strength and weight. Felling trees, trimming
logs, and steering them down the river to the "ship-yard," proved a
slower undertaking than had been foreseen. But nobody complained. The
air they breathed and the life they led were in themselves annihilators
of despair. It was an exhilarating, out-of-door life,--a life of love
and labor and of ecstatic repose.
Both Elinor and Pats were up with the sun, and the days were never too
long. To them it mattered little whether the evenings were long or short
or cold or warm, for by the time the dishes were washed and the chores
were done, they became too sleepy to be of interest to each other. And
when the lady retired to her own chamber behind the tapestries, Pats, at
his end of the cottage, always whistled gently or broke the silence in
one way or another as a guarantee of distance, that she might feel a
greater security.
As for lovers' quarrels none occurred that were seriously respected by
either party. In fact there was but little to break the monotony of that
solid, absolute content with which all days began and ended.
"'Tis love that makes the world go round."
There is no doubt of that, but two lovers, with unfailing appetites,
however exalted their devotion, are sure, in time, to produce
conspicuous results with any ordinary store of provisions. In the
present instance the discovery--or realization--of this truth was
accidental. It came one morning as Elinor, in a blue and white apron,
with sleeves rolled up, was preparing corn-bread at the kitchen
table--so they called the table near the fireplace at the end of the
room. Pats came up from the cellar with a face of unusual seriousness.
"I have been an awful fool!"
She looked up with her sweetest smile:
"And that troubles you, darling?"
Without replying, he laid three potatoes on the table.
"I told you to get four."
"These are the last."
"Isn't there a second barrel?"
"No."
"Why, Patsy! We both saw it!"
"That's where I was a fool. I took it for granted the other barrel held
potatoes because it looked like the first one."
"But it was full of something."
"Yes, but not potatoes. It is crockery, glassware, a magnificent
table-set. Old Sevres, I should say."
"What a shame!" And with the back of a hand whose fingers were covered
with corn-meal, she brushed a stray lock from her face.
"Yes," he went on, "it's a calamity, for we cannot afford it. I took an
account of stock while I was down there, and all we have now in the way
of vegetables is the dried apples. Of course, there's the garden
truck,--the peas, beans, and the corn,--if it ever ripens."
After further conversation on that subject, Elinor said, with a sigh:
"Well, we did enjoy those baked potatoes! We shall have to eat more
eggs, that's all."
"Eggs!" and his face became distorted. "I am so chock full of eggs now
that everything looks yellow. I dream of them. I cackle in my sleep. My
whole interior is egg. I breathe and think egg. I gag when I hear a
hen."
"But you are going to eat them all the same. We have a dozen a day, and
you must do your share."
"I won't."
"Yes, you will."
As Pats's eyes fell on Solomon, he brightened up. "There's that dog eats
only the very things we are unable to spare. Why shouldn't _he_ eat
eggs?"
"You might try and teach him."
"Tell me," said Pats, "why hens should lay nothing but eggs, always
eggs? Why shouldn't they lay pears, lemons, tomatoes,--things we really
need?"
In silence the lady continued her work.
"Angel Cook?"
"Well?"
"What do you think?"
"I think, considering your years, that your conversation is surprising.
Eggs are very nourishing, and we are lucky to have them. Didn't I make
you a nice omelette only a few days ago?"
"You did, and I never knew a better for its purpose. I still use it for
cleaning the windows."
"Really! Well, you had better make it last, for you won't get another."
"Oh, don't be angry! I thought you meant it as a keepsake."
He approached with repentant air, but when threatened with her doughy
hands, he retreated, and sat on the big chest by the window. This chest
had served for his bed since his convalescence.
Elinor frowned, and pointed to the fire. Pats arose and laid on a fresh
stick, then knelt upon the hearth and, with a seventeenth-century
bellows, inlaid with silver, that would have graced the drawing-room of
a palace, he coaxed the fire into a more active life.
"Now go out and bring in some wood. More small sticks. Not the big
ones."
[Illustration]