"It allus makes me coltish to see two young folks a-weavin'
the thread o' affection."--Old Cy Walker.
There were three people at Birch Camp,--as Angie had christened
it,--namely, herself, Ray, and Chip, who did not share Martin's
suspicion of danger. A firm belief that a woman's aid in such a
complication was of no value, coupled with a desire to save her
anxiety, had kept his lips closed as to the situation.
Life here at all hours soon settled itself into a certain daily
routine of work, amusement, and, on Chip's part, of study. True to
her philanthropic sense of duty toward this waif, Angie had at once
set about her much-needed education. A reading and spelling book
suitable for a child of eight had been secured at the settlement, and
now "lessons" occupied a few hours of each day.
It was only a beginning, of course, and yet with constant reminders
as to pronunciation, this was all that Angie could do. The idioms of
Tim's Place, with all its profanity, still adhered to Chip's speech.
This latter, especially, would now and then crop out in spite of all
admonitions; and so Angie found that her pupil made slow progress.
There was also another reason for this. Chip was afraid of her, and oft
reproved for her lapses in speech, soon ceased all unnecessary talk when
with Angie.
But with Ray it was different. He was near her own age, the companionship
of youth was theirs, and with him Chip's speech was ready enough. This,
of course, answered all the purposes of benefit by assimilation, and
so Angie was well satisfied that they should be together. Beyond that
she had no thought that love might accrue from this association.
Chip, while fair of face and form, and at a sentimental age, was so crude
of speech, so grossly ignorant, and so allied to the ways and manners of
Tim's Place, that, according to Angie's reasoning, Ray's feelings
were safe enough. He was well bred and refined, a happy, natural boy now
verging upon manhood. In Greenvale he had never shown much interest in
girls' society, and while he now showed a playmate enjoyment of Chip's
company, that was all that was likely to happen.
But the winged god wots not of speech or manners. A youth of eighteen and
a maid of sixteen are the same the world over, and so out of sight of
Angie, and unsuspected by her, the by-play of heart-interest went on.
And what a glorious golden summer opportunity these two had!
Back of the camp and tending northwest to southeast was a low ridge of
outcropping slate, bare in spots--a hog-back, in wilderness phrase.
Beyond this lay a mile-long "blow-down," where a tornado had levelled
the tall timber. A fire, sweeping this when dry, left a criss-cross
confusion of charred logs, blueberry bushes had followed fast, and now
those luscious berries were ripening in limitless profusion. Every fair
day Ray and Chip came here to pick, to eat, to hear the birds sing, to
gather flowers and be happy.
They watched the rippled lake with now and then a deer upon its shores,
from this ridge; they climbed up or down it, hand in hand; they fished in
the lake or canoed about it, time and again; and many a summer evening,
when the moon served, Chip handled the paddle, while Ray picked his
banjo and sang his darky songs all around this placid sheet of water.
And what a wondrous charm this combination of moonlight on the lake and
love songs softened and made tender by the still water held for Chip! As
those melodies had done on that first evening beside the camp-fire, so
now they filled her soul with a strange, new-born, and wonderful sense of
joy and gladness.
The black forest enclosing them now was sombre and silent. Spites still
lurked in its depths and doubtless were watching; but a protector was
near, his arm was strong; back at the landing were kind friends, and the
undulating path of silvered light, the round, smiling orb above, the
twinkling stars, and this matchless music became a new wonder-world to
her.
Her eyes glistened and grew tender with pathos. She had no more idea than
a child why she was happy. Each day sped by on wings of wind, each hour,
with her one best companion, the most joyful, and so, day by day, poor
Chip learned the sad lesson of loving.
But never a word or hint of this fell from her lips. Ray was so far above
her and such a young hero, that she, a homeless outcast, tainted by the
filth and service of Tim's Place, could only look to him as she did
to the moon.
They laughed and exchanged histories. Ofttimes he reproved her speech.
They fished, picked berries, and worked together like two big children,
and only her wistful eyes told the other why they were wistful.
Martin, busy at camp-building and watching ever for an enemy's coming,
saw it not. Angie was as obtuse; the old hermit, misanthropic and verging
into dotage, was certainly oblivious, and so no ripples of interest
disturbed these workers.
Such conditions were as sunshine to flowers in aiding the two young
lovers, so this forest idyl matured rapidly. Chip, perhaps more
imaginative than Ray, since most of her education had been the weird
superstition of Old Tomah, felt most of its emotional force, though
unconscious of the reason.
"I dunno why I feel so upset all the time lately," she said one
afternoon to Ray as, returning from the berry field, they halted on
top of the ridge to scan the lake below. "Some o' the time I feel so
happy I want to sing, 'n' then I feel jes' t'other way, 'n'
like cryin'. When the good spell is on, everything looks so purty,
'n' when I come on to a bunch o' posies, then I feel I must go right
down on my knees 'n' kiss 'em. When I was at Tim's Place, I never
thought about anything 'cept to get my work done 'n' keep from
gettin' cussed 'n' licked. I was scart, too, most o' the time,
'n' kept feelin' suthin awful was goin' to happen to me. Now that's
'most gone, but I feel a heartache in place on't. I allus hev a spell
o' feelin' so every mornin' when I wake up 'n' hear the birds
singin'. They 'fect me so that I'm near cryin' 'fore I git up. You
'n' Mis' Frisbie 'n' everybody's been so good to me, I guess it's
made me silly. Then thar's 'nother thing worries me, an' that's
goin' to the settlement whar you folks is from. I feel I kin sorter earn
my keepin' here, but I s'pose I can't thar, 'n' that bothers me.
If only you 'n' all the rest was goin' to stay here all the time
'n' I could work some, same as I do now, an' be with you odd spells
'n' evenin's, I'd be so happy. It 'ud be jest like the spot Old
Tomah said we're goin' to when we die. He used to tell how 'twas
summer thar all the time, with game plenty, berries ripe, flowers
growin', too, all the year 'round, 'n' birds singin'. He believed
thar was two places somewhar: one for white folks and one fer Injuns;
that when we died we turned into spites, stayed 'round till we got
revenge for everything bad done us, or got a chance to pay up what good
we owed for."
"I don't know where we go to when we quit this world, and neither
does anybody else, I believe," Ray answered philosophically, and
scarce understanding Chip's mood. "I believe, as Old Cy does, that
the time to be happy is when we are young and can be; that when we
are ready to leave this world is time enough for another one. As to your
worrying about your going to Greenvale," he added confidently, and
encircling Chip's waist with one arm, "why, you've got me to look
out for you, and then Angie won't begrudge you your keep, so don't
think about that." And then this young optimist, quite content with
what the gods had provided in this maid of sweet lip and appealing eye,
assured her she had everything to make her happy, including himself for
companion; that all her moody spells were merely memories of Tim's
Place, best forgotten, and much more of equally tender and silly import.
Not for one instant did he realize the growing independence and
self-reliance of this wilderness waif, or how the first feeling that
she was a burden upon these kind people would chafe and vex her defiant
nature, until she would scorn even love, to escape it.
Just now the tender impulse of first love was all Ray felt or
considered. This girl of sweet sixteen and utter confidence in him was
so enthralling in spite of her crude speech and lack of education, her
kisses were so much his to take whenever chance offered, and himself
such a young hero in her sight, that he thought of naught else.
In this, or at least so far as his reasoning went, they were like two
grown-up children entering a new world--the enchanted garden of love. Or
like two souls merged into one in impulse, yet in no wise conscious why
or for what all-wise purpose.
For them alone the sun shone, birds sang, leaves rustled, flowers
bloomed, and the blue lake rippled. For them alone was all this charming
chance given, with all that made it entrancing. For them alone was life,
love, and lips that met in ecstasy.
Oh, wondrous beatitude! Oh, heaven-born joy! Oh, divine illusion that
builds the world anew, and building thus, believes its secret safe!
But Old Cy, wise old observer of all things human, from the natural
attraction of two children to the philosophy of content, saw and
understood.
Not for worlds would he hint this to Angie or Martin. Full well he knew
how soon this "weavin' o' the threads o' affection," would be
frowned upon by them; but he loved children as few men do.
This summer-day budding of romance would end in a few weeks, these two
were happy now--let them remain so, and perhaps in Chip's case it might
prove the one best incentive to her own improvement.
And now as he watched them day by day, came another feeling. Homeless all
his life so far, and for many years a wanderer, these two had awakened
the home-building impulse in his. He could not have a home himself, he
could only help them to one in the future, and to that end and purpose
he now bent his thought.
The weeks there with Ray had opened Old Cy's heart to him. Even sooner,
and with greater force, had Chip's helpless condition made the same
appeal, and as he watched her wistful eyes and willing ways, in spite
of her speech and in spite of her origin, he saw in her the making of a
good wife and mother. Her heritage, as he now guessed, was of the worst,
her education was yet to be obtained; but for all that, a girl--no, a
child--of sixteen who would dare sixty miles of wilderness alone to save
herself from a shameful fate, was of the metal and fibre to win, and
more than that, deserved the best that life afforded.
How he could at present aid her, he saw not. A few years of help and time
to study must be given her, and as Old Cy realized how much must be done
for her and how uncertain it was whether Angie would find time, or be
willing to do it, then and there he determined to share that duty with
her.
It was midsummer when Martin and his party returned to the lake with
Chip. In two weeks the new log cabin--a large one, divided into three
compartments--was erected and ready for occupation, and so convenient
and picturesque a wildwood dwelling was it that a brief description may
be tolerated.
All log cabins are much alike--a square enclosure of unhewn logs thatched
with saplings and chinked with mud and moss. A low door of boards or
split poles is the usual entrance, with one small window for light; its
floor may be of small split logs or mother earth, and at best it is a
cramped, cheerless hovel.
But Martin's was a more pretentious creation. Its location, well out on
the birch-clad point, back of which stood the hermit's hut, commanded a
view of the lake. A group of tall-stemmed spruce, amid which it stood,
gave shade, yet allowed observation. It was of oblong shape, with a
wide piazza of white birch poles and roof of same; two four-pane windows
to each room gave ample light; a small Franklin stove had been brought
for the sitting room, and a cook stove occupied the "lean-to" cook
room back of the main cabin. Beds, chairs, and benches were fashioned
from the plentiful white birch stems, and floor and doors were of planed
boards.
It was but a crude structure, compared to even the humblest of civilized
dwellings; and yet with all its fittings conveyed into this wilderness in
one bateau, and with only axes, a saw, and hammer for tools, as was
the case, it was a marvel.
Working as all the men had done from dawn until dark to complete this
cabin, no recreation had been taken by any one except Ray and Chip; and
now Martin, a keen sportsman, felt that his turn had come. The trout were
rising night and morn all over the lake, partridges so tame that they
would scarce fly were as plenty as sparrows, a half-dozen deer could be
seen any time along the lake shore--in fact, one had already furnished
them venison--and so Martin now anticipated some relaxation and sport.
But Fate willed otherwise.
One of Old Cy's first and most far-sighted bits of work, after being
left with the hermit the previous autumn, had been the erection of an
ice-house out of large saplings. It stood at the foot of a high bank
on the north of the knoll and close to the lake, and here, out of the
sunshine, yet handy to fill, stood his creation. Its double walls of
poles were stuffed with moss, its roof chinked with blue clay, a sliding
door gave ingress, and even now, with summer almost gone, an ample supply
of ice remained in it.
In the division of duties among these campers, Levi usually started the
morning fire while Old Cy visited the ice-house for anything needed. One
morning after the new cabin was completed, he came here as usual.
A fine string of trout caught by Martin and Ray the day before were
hanging in this ice-house, and securing what was needed, Old Cy closed
the door and turned away. As usual with him, he glanced up and down
the narrow beach to see if a deer had wandered along there that morning,
and in doing so he now saw, close to the water's edge and distinctly
outlined in the damp sand, the print of a moccasined foot.
It was of extra large size, and as Old Cy bent over it, he saw it had
recently been made. Glancing along toward the head of this cove, he saw
more tracks, and two rods away, the sharp furrow of a canoe prow in the
sand.
"It's that pesky half-breed, sure's a gun," he muttered, stooping
over the track, "fer a good bit o' his legs was turned up to walk on,
and he wore moccasins t'other day."
Curious now, and somewhat startled, he looked along where the narrow
beach curved out and around to the landing, and saw the tracks led that
way. Then picking his way so as not to obscure them, he followed until
not three rods from the new cabin they left the beach and were plainly
visible behind a couple of spruces, in the soft carpet of needles, which
was crushed for a small space, where some one had stood.
Returning to camp, Old Cy motioned to Levi and Martin. All three returned
to the ice-house, looked where the canoe had cut its furrow, took up
the trail to its ending beside the two trees, and then glanced into one
another's eyes with serious, sobered, troubled faces.
And well they might; for the evening previous they had all been grouped
upon the piazza of this new cabin until late, while scarce three rods
away a spying enemy, presumably this half-breed, had stood and watched
them.