"There ain't but few folks smell woollen quite quick enough."
--Old Cy Walker.
During all the long weeks while Chip had awaited her lover's coming,
one hope had been hers--that his return would end all her loneliness and
begin a season of the happy, care-free days like those by the lake once
more.
And there were many reasons for it.
In this quiet, strictly religious, gossip-loving village, a dependant
upon charity, as it were, and with Hannah's sneers, Chip had slowly but
surely learned how little akin she was to them all, and how distrustful
they all were of her. This knowledge had come by degrees: first, from
the way in which the older pupils at school regarded her, having
always kept aloof; then the insistent staring she received each Sunday
at church; the somewhat chilly reception she had met in a social
way; and lastly, a seeming indifference on Angie's part. There was no
reason for it all, so far as Chip could understand. She walked in
the straight and narrow path laid out for her each day, made herself
useful between school hours at Aunt Comfort's, studied hard, thanked
Angie for every trifle, and after her first unfortunate experience in
defending her belief in spites and Old Tomah's hobgoblins, she had
never referred to them again. But the seeming fact that she was disliked
and unwelcome here had slowly forced itself upon her and added to her
loneliness.
It was all to end, however, when Ray came. In him or from him she would
find a welcome. He knew her as she was, and what she was. He had not been
distrustful, but tender and loving, and all clouds and sorrow and all
humiliations would fade away when he came.
She had pictured to herself, also, how much they would be together
and where; how he would come to Aunt Comfort's the first evening and
tell all about his winter in the wilderness and Old Cy,--all about
the trap-setting, gum-gathering, and the deep snows she knew so much
about. Maybe he would bring his banjo now and then and play and sing the
darky songs she had hummed so many times. Possibly he might come and
meet her occasionally on the way home from school; and when vacation
came, how many long rambles they would take in the dear old woods, with
no such ogre as the half-breed to spoil them. It had all been a rosy-hued
dream with her, while she waited his coming. And now he was here!
For the first few moments after he kissed her upraised lips, she could
not speak for very joy; and then, as hand in hand they started toward
the village, her speech came.
"I've been so lonesome," she said simply, "I've counted the days,
and come down here to meet you daily, for over a month. I don't like
it here, and nobody likes me, I guess. I'm so glad you've come, though.
Now I shan't be lonesome no more. I've studied hard, too," she added,
with an accent of pride. "I can read and spell words of six syllables.
I've ciphered up to decimal fractions, an' begun grammar."
"I'm glad to get home, too," answered Ray, as simply. "It was
lonesome in the woods all winter, when we couldn't tend the traps. But
I've made a lot of money--'most five hundred dollars--all mine, too.
How is everybody?" And so they dropped from sentiment into commonplace.
At the tavern he secured his belongings. At the corner where their ways
parted, he bade Chip a light good-by, and with an "I'll see you soon,"
left her.
Her hero had arrived. They had met, kissed as lovers should, and the
lonely waiting and watching days were at an end and a new life was to
begin for Chip.
Little did she realize what it would mean for her, or how utterly her
hopes were to fail.
"He will come to-night," her heart assured her, and that evening,
without a word to Aunt Comfort or Hannah as to whom she expected, she
arrayed herself in her one best dress and awaited his expected visit.
And what a propitious and all-favoring evening it was! The June night
was balmy. Blooming lilacs and syringas half hid, as well as adorned, the
porch of Aunt Comfort's home. Aunt Comfort had just departed to make
a call, Hannah was away at prayer meeting, and "no one nigh to hinder."
But Chip waited in vain!
The drowsy hum of the Mizzy Falls, up the village street, came to her;
the fireflies twinkled amid the dense-growing maples and over the broad
meadows; whippoorwills called across the valley; but no lover came to
Chip. One, two, almost three hours she waited and watched. Then came
Aunt Comfort and Hannah, and heavy-hearted and lonesome once more, poor
Chip retired.
At school next day her mind and heart were at war. The parts of speech
and rules of subtraction and division seemed complete chaos, and when
homeward bound, she loitered slowly along, hoping Ray would make amends
and meet her on the way. But again he failed to appear.
And that night, when alone with Hannah, a worse blow came.
"I heerd young Stetson got back yesterday," she said, fixing her
steely blue eyes on Chip, "an' you went down the road to meet him. I
should think you'd be 'shamed o' yourself. If you're callatin'
on settin' your cap for him, 'twon't do a mite o' good. His aunt
wouldn't think o' havin' sich an outcast ez you for him--that I can
tell ye."
But not a word of reply came from poor Chip. Such speeches were not new
to her, and she had long before ceased to answer them. But this one, from
its very truth, hurt more than all others had, and, crushed by it, she
stole away out of the house.
No thought that Ray might call came to her. She only wished to escape
somewhere, that she might cry away her misery and shame in solitude.
The evening was but a repetition of the previous one. The same sweet
influence and silvered light was all about, but no heed of its beauty
came to Chip. Instead, she felt herself a shameful thing of no account.
Her lover had failed her--now she knew why, and as she sped along the
lonely way to the schoolhouse, scarce conscious of her steps, all hope
and all joy left her. Why or for what purpose she was hurrying toward
this deserted little building, she knew not. Hot tears filled her eyes.
Shame surged in her heart. She was a nobody in the eyes of all her
world, and once she had reached the worn sill, so often crossed by
her, she threw herself upon it and sobbed in utter despair.
For a long hour she sat there while the tide of feeling ebbed and tears
came unchecked, and then the reaction came. With it, also, came something
of the old courage and defiance that had once led her to face night,
danger, and sixty miles of wilderness alone.
"I have made a mistake," she said, sitting up, "and Hannah was right.
I am a nobody here, and Ray has been told so and has kept away."
And now with returning calm, and soothed, maybe, by the still, ethereal
night, she saw herself, her past and present, as it all was. Back in
an instant she sped in thought to the moment when, kneeling to these
people, she begged for food; back to that first prayer she ever heard
in the tent, and the offer of rescue that followed.
And then her life here, with all its hopes and humiliation, rose before
her.
"It was all wrong, my coming here," she said, looking away to the
village where lights twinkled; "I am not their sort, nor they mine.
I'd better go away."
Then, lifted a wee bit by this new resolve, she rose and returned to the
house.
The tall clock in the sitting room was just chiming ten when she entered,
and Aunt Comfort was there alone.
"Raymond was here this evening," she said kindly, "and waited quite
a spell. Where have you been?"
"Oh, nowhere," answered Chip, pleasantly, "only I was lonesome and
went out for a walk."
Little did good Aunt Comfort realize what a volcano of hope, despair,
shame, and tender love was concealed beneath that calm answer, or the
new resolve budding in Chip's heart.
No more did Ray suspect it when he met her coming home from school the
next afternoon.
For during those two wretched hours when she was alone on the worn
schoolhouse step, poor Chip McGuire, the low-born, pitiful waif, had
become a woman and put away girlish impulses.
"I couldn't come to see you that first evening," he said at once,
"for uncle and aunty kept me talking till bedtime. Where were you last
night?"
"Oh, I didn't much think you would come," answered Chip, calmly,
smiling at him in a far-off way. "I am a nobody here, as you will soon
find out, and I don't expect--anything. I got lonesome last night and
went off for a walk."
Ray looked at her in wide-eyed astonishment. And well he might, for only
two short days since she had met him, an eager, simple girl, and now she
spoke like a woman. No word, no hint of his neglect, escaped her; but
a cool indifference was apparent.
"Tell me about the woods and Old Cy," she said, not waiting for him
to speak again, "and how is the hermit? I want to know all about them."
"Oh, I left 'em all right," answered Ray, sullenly, for like a boy
he wanted to be coaxed. And then, urged a little by Chip, he told his
winter's experience.
One episode interested her most of all--the strange trapper's doings,
his theft of their game, their pursuit of him and discovery of his hiding
spot.
"I know who that was," she said, when it was all described. "It was
my father, and if he had caught you spying upon him, I guess he'd shot
you both. He always used to go somewhere trapping every fall; but nobody
could ever find where."
This return to the memories of the wilderness wore away something of
Chip's cool reserve, and when the house was reached her eyes had grown
tender.
"I shall be glad to see you often--as--as your folks will let you
come," she said, somewhat timidly when they parted; and scarce
understanding this speech, Ray left her.
"Chip has changed a whole lot," he said to his aunt a little later,
"and I wish she hadn't; she don't seem the same any more."
"I'm glad of it if she has," answered Angie, smiling at him. "There
was need enough of it."