REVIVIFYING FIRES
It was butchering day at Silas Chamberlain's and Liza Ann had the
household astir early. Luther Hansen was master of ceremonies in the
backyard, and relieved Silas of the heavy lifting. It was a day for
visiting and neighbourly activity as well as hard work. Hugh Noland had
been sent to Silas the week before by Doctor Morgan, and assisted in
rolling the pork barrel from the cellar door to a convenient post near the
out-of-door fire, where they sunk the bottom of it into the frozen earth
and carefully tilted it to the proper angle for scalding purposes.
"It's fifteen years since I've been at 'a killing,' and I feel as if I
were ten years old again," Noland said as he watched the hard earth give
way under the mattock Luther wielded.
"Go hunt a straw in that case, and I'll see that you get the bladder.
Shall I save you the pig's tail?" Luther said as he settled the barrel
into the cavity.
They swung the great iron kettle over the pile of kindling and corncobs
laid ready for lighting, and then carried water to fill it.
As the last bucket was emptied into the kettle, Luther turned and swung
his cap at John Hunter and Jake, who were passing in the bobsled.
"Hunters," he explained. "Have you met them yet?"
"No," replied Noland. "Who are they? He drives a good team."
"Nearest neighbours on th' west over there," Luther said, pointing to the
roofs of the Hunter place, plainly to be seen over the rise of land
between. "They're th' folks for you t' know--th' only ones with
book-learnin' around here. Goin' t' stay with th' Chamberlains long?"
"No," replied the other, with a look of reticence; "that is, only for a
time. He don't hire much, he tells me. I'm just helping him till he gets
his fencing tightened up and this work done. Why?"
"Well, I was just a thinkin' that that's th' place for you. Hunter hires a
lot of work done, and--and you'd like each other. You're th' same kind of
folks. I wonder how he come t' be takin' 'is man along t' town with 'im?
Th' was a trunk in th' back of the sled too, but that may 'a' been for
Mrs. Hunter. That was 'is mother with 'im."
There was not much time to speculate about future work, there was much to
be done in the present, and before noon five limp bodies had been dragged
from the pens to the scalding barrel, plunged into the steaming water,
turned, twisted, turned again, and after being churned back and forth till
every inch of the black hides was ready to shed its coat of hair and
scarf-skin, were drawn out upon the wheelbarrow. Then a gambol-stick was
thrust through the tendons of the hind legs and the hogs were suspended
from a cross pole about six feet from the ground, where they hung while
the great corn-knives scraped and scratched and scrubbed and scoured till
the black bodies gradually lost their coating and became pink and tender
looking and perfectly clean. They were then drawn and left to cool and
stiffen.
The sloppy, misty weather made the work hard because of the frozen earth
under the melting snow, and the steaming, half foggy atmosphere was too
warm for comfort of men working over an open fire and a steaming barrel of
hot water, but by noon the butchering was finished. To the new man it was
a journey back to childhood. How well he remembered the various features
of preparation: the neighbours asked in to assist, the odours pleasant and
unpleasant, the bustling about of his mother as she baked and boiled and
stewed for the company, the magic circle about the pens from which he was
excluded when the men went forth with the rifle, and the squeal which
followed the rifle's crack, and the fear which gripped him when he thought
the poor pig was hurt, but which was explained away by his father, who,
proud of his marksmanship, assured him that "that pig never knew what hit
it."
In addition to the fact that the man had spent his childhood on a farm, he
had the happy faculty of entering into the life of the people among whom
he found himself. He entertained the little group at the dinner table that
day with a description of his mother's soap-making, and discussed the best
ways of preparing sausage for summer use as if he himself were a cook; and
as Luther listened he was convinced that the Hunter home was the proper
place for him to settle down.
At two o'clock Luther started home with some spareribs, wrapped in one of
Liza Ann's clean towels, under his arm. It was early, but nothing more
could be done at Silas's house till the carcasses were cold enough to cut
and trim, and, besides, there was an ominous looking bank of dull gray
cloud in the northwest. Luther swung along the road toward the west
energetically.
The wind gave a little twisting flurry, and dropped completely when he was
about halfway between Chamberlain's and the Hunter place. A few minutes
later there was a puff of wind from the opposite direction, succeeded by a
feeling of chill. Luther scanned the horizon and stepped faster. When the
advance guard of fine snow began to sift down from the leaden sky above,
he started to run. He had lived in the north, and knew the meaning of the
rapidly darkening sky. The signs were unmistakable. Presently the fine
flakes began to rush along toward the south with greater force. The wind
came on steadily now. Luther looked about anxiously, making a note of the
location of things. It was still a quarter of a mile to Hunter's. As he
peered ahead, wishing himself nearer protection, with a roar the blizzard
fell upon him, blotting out the landscape before him as completely as if a
curtain had fallen between.
With all his might Luther struggled forward. The wind came from the right
side and almost carried him from his feet. He had been standing over a
steaming kettle and scalding barrel most of the day, and the icy blast
went through him, chilling his blood instantly. Luther knew his danger.
This was not a cyclone where men were carried away by the winds of summer;
this was a winter's storm where men could freeze to death, and men froze
quickly in blizzards. The driving particles of snow and ice made it
impossible to look ahead. He shielded his face with his right arm, and
tried, as he hurried forward, to keep in mind the exact direction of the
Hunter house. If he could only reach that he would be safe. The road was a
new one, recently opened, and not well defined. It was almost at once
obliterated. Little needles of ice thrust themselves at him with stinging
force, and he could not see; the blinding snow whirled and whistled about
his feet, and in five minutes Luther Hansen realized that he had got out
of the road. He stopped in alarm and, turning his back to the storm, tried
to see about him. The gray wall of snow completely obscured every object
from his sight. He had a sense of being the only thing alive in the
universe; all else seemed to have been destroyed. His every nerve ached
with the cold, but peer about as he would he could not possibly tell where
he was. He remembered that there had been a cornfield on his right, and
thought that he must have gone too far south, for he was certainly in the
meadow now. The pressure of the wind, he reflected, would naturally carry
him in that direction, so he faced around and started on, bearing
stubbornly toward the north. Every fibre in him shook; no cold he had ever
felt in Minnesota was equal to this; there was a quality in the pressure
of this cold that was deadly. The wind pierced in spite of every kind of
covering. Real fear began to lay hold upon him. He stumbled easily; the
action of his limbs began to give him alarm. The package of spareribs fell
from under his arm, and he stooped to pick it up. As he bent over the wind
caught him like a tumble-weed and threw him in a shivering heap on the
ground. He had worn no mittens in the morning, and his hands stung as if
tortured by the lashes of many whips. To ease their hurt he remained
huddled together with his back to the wind while he breathed on his
freezing fingers, but remembered that that was the surest way to add to
the nip of the cold in a blast which condensed the breath from his mouth
into icicles before it had time to get away from his moustache. Staggering
to his feet, he stumbled on toward the Hunter house, trying as hard as his
fast benumbing senses would permit to bear toward the wind and the
cornfield at the right. He had not picked up the package--had forgotten it
in fact--and now he tried to beat his freezing hands across his shoulders
as he ran. The bitter wind could not be endured, and he crossed his hands,
thrusting them into his sleeves, hoping to warm them somehow on his
wrists; but with eyes uncovered he could not gauge his steps, and stumbled
and fell. Unable to get his hands out of his sleeves in time to protect
himself, he tripped forward awkwardly and scratched his face on the cut
stubs of the meadow-grass. Evidently he had not reached the road as yet.
He knew the road so well that he could have kept it with a bandage over
his eyes but for the wind which thrust him uncertainly from his course. It
was that which was defeating him. Try as he would, he could not keep his
attention fixed upon the necessity of staying near that cornfield.
Determined to find it before he proceeded farther toward the west, he
faced the wind squarely, and, bracing his body firmly, hurried as fast as
he could toward the stalkfield.
After a time he seemed to wake up; he was not facing the wind, and he was
aching miserably. Luther Hansen knew what that meant: he was freezing.
Already the lethargy of sleep weighted each dragging foot. He thought of
the nest an old sow had been building in the pen next to the one where the
killing had been done that day. With the instincts of her kind, the
mother-pig had prepared for the storm by making a bed where it would be
sheltered. Luther's mind dwelt lingeringly upon its cozy arrangement;
every atom of his body craved shelter. Death by freezing faced him
already, though he had been in the grip of the storm but one short quarter
of an hour. He had lost consciousness of time: he only knew that he was
freezing within sight of home. Nothing but action could save him. Nerving
himself for another trial, the bewildered man turned toward the north and
walked into the very teeth of the storm, searching for the lost trail.
Sometimes he thought his foot had found it; then it would be lost again.
He wandered on hours, days, weeks--he wandered shivering over the meadow,
the road, the state of Kansas--over the whole globe and through all space,
till at last a great wall shut off the offending wind, the roar of the
planets lessened, and the numb and frozen man fell forward insensible,
striking his head against a dark obstruction thrusting its shoulder
through a bank of dirty gray snow.
The sound of a heavy body falling on her doorstep brought Elizabeth Hunter
to the door. She opened it cautiously. The snow swirled in as it was drawn
back and the heated air of the sitting room rushed out, forming a cloud of
steam which almost prevented her from seeing the helpless figure at her
feet. She could not distinguish the features, but it was a man, and the
significance of his presence was plain. Seizing him about the body,
Elizabeth dragged him into the house, and shut the door behind him to keep
out the blast.
"Luther Hansen!" she exclaimed.
Finding that she could not arouse him, she pulled the relaxed and
nerveless form to the lounge, but when she attempted to lift the limp
figure to the couch she found it almost more than all her woman's strength
could accomplish. Luther stirred and muttered, but could not be awakened
sufficiently to help himself, and it was only after some minutes and the
putting forth of every ounce of strength that the girl had that he was at
last stretched upon the lounge. Elizabeth brought blankets to cover the
shivering, muttering, delirious man, and having heard that the frost must
be drawn gradually from frozen extremities, and being unable to get his
hands and feet into cold water, she brought and wrapped wet towels about
them, and chafed his frozen face.
It was a long time before the white nose and cheeks began to show colour;
then the ears became scarlet, and pain began to sting the man into
consciousness. The chafing hurt, and Luther fought off the hands that
rubbed so tenderly.
Gradually Luther Hansen awoke to his surroundings. Delirium and reality
mixed helplessly for some moments. He remembered his struggles to reach
the Hunter house, but the gap in the train of his affairs made him suspect
that this was a phase of delirium and that he was in reality freezing. He
was stinging all over. He wanted to find out where he was, and tried to
get upon his feet.
"You are right here in my house, Luther," Elizabeth said, holding him on
his pillow.
Luther relaxed and lay looking at her for some time before he asked:
"How did I get here, Lizzie?"
"I don't know, Luther," she replied. "I heard you fall on the doorstep. I
never was so surprised. How did you come to be out--and without mittens
too?"
She removed the wet towel from one of his hands, and he drew it away with
a groan.
"I expect, Lizzie, it's frozen. You better rub it with snow."
The question of how he reached her house puzzled Luther throughout the
long afternoon and evening, while they listened to the roar of the wind
and talked of the unsheltered cattle in the many Kansas stalkfields.
"The only thing that kept our cattle from being out of doors was the fact
that Jake had to go to Iowa and John had to take him to town," Elizabeth
had said at one point.
"Has Jake left for good?" Luther asked hesitatingly. He knew John's
unpopularity with the men who worked for him and was a little afraid to
ask Elizabeth, who might be sensitive about it.
"No. Jake has lost his mother, but he'll come back for the spring seeding.
Jake's a good man; he and John seem to get along pretty well." It was
Elizabeth's turn to speak hesitatingly. She did not know how much Luther
knew of John's affairs with his men, nor what opinion Jake might have
expressed to Luther.
"Jake's a curious cub! He's been your dog, Lizzie, ever since that school
business. I've heard 'im tell it over twenty times."
"I wish we could find another like him," Elizabeth said wistfully. "John
isn't able to take care of all this stock unless he gets a man in
Colebyville to-day, and--and if he did, the man, as likely as not,
wouldn't stay more than a week or two."
Luther Hansen looked up eagerly.
"Lizzie, I've found th' very man for you folks. He'll stay too. He's a
fellow by th' name of Noland--workin' for Chamberlain, an' wants a job
right soon--got a lot of book-learnin'--just your kind."
"I'll have John see him when he gets home," Elizabeth answered
indifferently. "My! I wonder when they will be able to get back?" she
added.
"They wasn't through tradin' when this thing come on," Luther replied.
"Anyhow, houses was too thick t' get lost th' first half of th' way.
Listen to that wind, though! I'm glad t' be here if I do look like a
turkey gobbler with these ears," he laughed.
It was so cold that Elizabeth had built a roaring fire, and to keep the
snow, which penetrated every crack, from sifting under the door, she laid
old coats and carpets across the sill. She brought coal and cobs from the
shed, stopping each trip to get warm, for even to go the twenty steps
required to get to the cobhouse was to experience more cold than she had
ever encountered in all the days when she had plowed through the snows of
Kansas winters while teaching; in fact, had the fuel been much farther
from her door she would hardly have ventured out for it at all in a wind
which drove one out of his course at every fresh step and so confused and
blinded him that the points of the compass were a blank, and paths could
not be located for the drifts, which ran in every direction the swirling
wind chose to build them. She had gone around the shed to the back door,
knowing that the front door being on the windward side could not be shut
again if once opened, and the few extra steps necessary to creep around
the building froze her to the bone, for the eddying wind had carried the
snow deep at that point and, being enough sheltered to prevent packing,
had left it a soft pile into which she sank almost to her waist. She was
obliged to hunt for a shovel and clear the snow out of the doorway when
she was through, and her hands were completely numbed when she reached the
house after it was over. With the feeling that she might not be able to
reach the shed at all in the morning, or that the doors might be drifted
shut altogether, Elizabeth had taken enough cobs and coal into the kitchen
to half fill the room and was ready to withstand a siege of days, but she
paid toll with aching hands and feet that frightened Luther into a new
realization of the nature of the storm.
When at last the one fire Elizabeth thought it wise to keep up was rebuilt
and dry shoes had replaced the wet ones, she settled down beside the
lounge, with her feet in another chair to keep them off the cold floor,
and turned to Luther expectantly.
"This storm's awful, as you say," she said in reply to his observation
that it might hold for days, "but I'm just so glad of a real chance for a
visit with you that I'm quite willing to bring cobs and keep fires."
"If that's true, why don't you come t' see us as you ought t', Lizzie?"
Luther said, looking her searchingly in the eye. "I never meddle in other
people's business, but you ain't th' stuck-up thing folks says you are.
Honest now, why don't you do as a neighbour should?"
Elizabeth Hunter's face flushed crimson and she leaned forward to tuck the
old coat, in which she had wrapped her feet, more closely about them while
she took time to get herself ready to answer the paralyzing question. The
longer she waited the harder it became to meet the kindly questioning eyes
bent upon her, and the more embarrassing it became to answer at all. She
fumbled and tucked and was almost at the point of tears when Jack, who was
asleep on a bed made on two chairs, began to fret. Seizing the welcome
means of escape, she got up and took the child, sitting down a little
farther away from Luther and hugging the baby as if he were a refuge from
threatened harm.
Luther felt the distance between them, but decided to force the issue. He
came about it from another quarter, but with inflexible determination.
"I hope Sadie got her kindling in before the storm began. It'll be awful
cold in th' mornin', and--I do wish I could 'a' got home. Sadie's fires
always go out."
"Your cobs are closer to the house than mine; Sadie 'll get along all
right."
"How do you know where our cobhouse is now, Lizzie? You ain't seen it for
over a year," Luther observed quietly. And when Elizabeth did not reply,
said with his eyes fastened on Jack's half-asleep face: "I wonder how
Janie is?"
Glad to talk of anything but herself and her own affairs, Elizabeth
answered with feverish readiness the last half of Luther's observation.
"You never told me what the baby's name was before. Isn't it sweet?"
"Do you know, Lizzie, that Sadie 'd most made 'er mind up t' call it after
you, if it was a girl, if you'd 'a' come t' be with 'er when it was born,
as you said you would?" Luther looked at her almost tenderly, and with a
yearning beyond words.
"After me? She didn't send for me when she was sick, Luther."
"No, but she would 'a', if you'd 'a' come as you ought t' 'a' done them
months when she wasn't goin' out." He looked at her penetratingly.
"I haven't been anywhere since Aunt Susan's death," Elizabeth evaded,
determined not to recognize his trend.
"You could 'a' come before her death, there was plenty of time. Now look
here, I ain't goin' t' beat about th' bush. I'm talkin' square. You can't
git away from me. You've had th' best chance a woman ever had t' help
another woman, an' you didn't take it. Sadie was that took by what you
said about bein' glad for th' chance t' have your baby, an' th' idea of
helpin' him t' have th' best disposition you could give 'im, that she
didn't talk of nothin' else for weeks, an' she looked for you till she was
sick, an' you never come. I want t' know why?"
Elizabeth Hunter had come to the judgment-bar; she could not escape these
cross-questions, neither could she answer. Her face grew white as Luther
Hansen looked searchingly into it, and her breath came hard and harder as
he looked and waited. This chance to talk to Luther was like wine to her
hungry soul, but John Hunter was her husband and she refused to accuse him
even after the long months of despair she had suffered at his hands.
Luther let her gather herself for her reply, not adding a word to the
demand for truth and friendship. How he trusted her in spite of it all! He
watched her indecision change to indignation at his insistence, and he saw
her head grow clear as she decided upon her course.
"I will not discuss the past with you, Luther," she said slowly, as one
who comes to a conclusion as he proceeds. "I cannot tell you all the
things which have led up to it. I am going to ask you not to mention it to
me again, but I will try to do it better next time. I had no idea that
Sadie cared whether I came to see her or not; she had always seemed to
dislike me." Elizabeth added the last hesitatingly lest she hurt Luther's
feelings.
"Lizzie, I won't be put off. If you don't want t' tell me _why_ you've
done as you have, I won't ask you t', but you've got t' let me talk t' you
about it all th' same. I ain't a man t' let myself mix up in my
neighbours' affairs, but, Lizzie, you ought t' live up t' th' things God's
put int' your power t' do. Now, then, you let folks get a wrong idea of
you. You've got more education 'n anybody else's got in this country, an'
you've got more money, an' you've got more everything 'n th' rest of us,
an' what's it been give t' you for if it ain't goin' t' come t' nothin'?
Here you've had th' best chance t' do somethin' for a neighbour woman a
woman ever had: Sadie's been that took with th' things you said about
children that she was ready t' listen t' you on anything, an' you won't
let 'er have a chance t' get at you at all--an' ain't she come out? You'd
have t' live with 'er, Lizzie, t' know what that little woman's done fur
herself this last year--an' it was you that helped t' do it. Honest, now,
don't you see yourself that if you've had things give t' you that th' rest
ain't had that you owe somethin' t' th' rest of us?"
In all the weary discordant time when she had struggled for better
conditions Elizabeth Hunter had never thought of anything in the situation
but the bettering of her own surroundings. It had been the suffering of
blind stupidity, of youth, of the human being too deeply submerged to
think of aught but personal affairs. Luther drew her attention to the main
facts of her life, drawing her away from self. It was a simple occurrence,
a simple subject, a simple question: it was in itself the reason for the
perpetuation of their friendship. The winds blew, the snow found its way
under door and sash and heaped itself in ridges across the floor, and in
spite of the roaring fire they were not always warm, but throughout the
night Elizabeth sat beside her lifelong friend and drew in a revivifying
fire which was to remould and make over a life which had almost flickered
to a smouldering resentment and inactivity.